Monday 1 22 18 morning call

A shortboard and a longboard sessions for me yesterday. The windsurfers at Hookipa are enjoying an exceptional winter with lots of good sailing days, specially in January. Photo by Jimmie Hepp from this gallery.


3am significant buoy readings
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 2.2f 15s. Yesterday the waves at Thousand Peaks were still in the knee to occasionally thigh high range, but the energy it should start increasing soon. Below is the collage of the fetches of Jan 13, 14, 15 and 16 that generated this out of season swell. Small stuff, be it could be fun.


North shore
NW101

6.8ft @ 17s from 312° (NW)

 

Hanalei

4.7ft @ 12s from 342° (NNW)

4.4ft @ 18s from 313° (NW)

 

Waimea

3.2ft @ 13s from 337° (NNW)                      

3.1ft @ 18s from 308° (WNW)

 

Pauwela

6.6ft @ 11s from 83° (E)

4.2ft @ 13s from 347° (NNW)                      

1.4ft @ 20s from 319° (NW)

New WNW swell on the rise, while yesterday's NNW one slowly declines and the easterly windswell stays steady.

Below is the graph of the four reported buoys, together with the Surfline forecast. I circled in red the new WNW swell that is moving down the chain of islands with the usual delay and decay due to travel. In this case, some of Maui's spots will get blocked a bit, not so much Hookipa, but more down the coast towards Kahului and on the west side.

The red dotted line was drawn according to the Surfline forecast that only calls for 3.8f 16s at 8pm. So for the first part of the day most of the energy in the water will still be provided by yesterday's unblocked NNW swell (purple line), while in the afternoon (and definitely tomorrow) the new WNW swell should become dominant (yellow line).

The red line is the easterly windswell that somehow will manage to stay elevated for the next two weeks (!) or so. Fortunately, the fetches that will generate that will be well offshore, so that won't necessarily mean howling local trades. Get your east exposed spots figured out, you guys. Grab a map and look what's facing east, it's that simple.


Wind map at noon shows easterly trades.

North Pacific shows a tiny NW fetch, a small but nice N one and an extended easterly windswell one.


South Pacific has a strong fetch oriented towards south America, but I doubt we'll get any angular spreading from it.


Morning sky.