Thursday 1 4 18 morning call

Two shortboard sessions for me yesterday in a day that saw some pretty epic windsurfing conditions as this photo by Jimmie Hepp from this gallery shows. Unfortunately there were also some injuries and a bit of gear carnage.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys, the Surfline forecast calls for 0.6f 12s but only starting mid day.

North shore
NW101
5.1ft @ 13s from 295° (WNW)

Waimea

4.7ft @ 13s from 312° (NW)

 

Pauwela

4.5ft @ 6s from 78° (ENE)

3.7ft @ 12s from 325° (NW)

2.6ft @ 7s from 59° (ENE)

2.1ft @ 9s from 12° (NNE)

 

The swell went down quite a bit locally and turned much more west at the NW101 buoy, not good news for us. But that's not even the biggest problem, as there will still be some waves at Hookipa. The real problem is the wind which is blowing pretty hard already: around 20mph along the whole north shore at 5.45am.

Wind map at noon shows esterly trades.


North Pacific shows a WNW fetch which gives me to opportunity to graphically illustrate what I was talking about yesterday. The map on the right has the great circle rays on it and it shows that this fetch is extended between 280 and 310 degrees. The related swell will have a dominant direction of somewhere in there (wherever the most energy will come from), but sets will come from that whole range and even wider than that due to the angular spreading.


South Pacific doesn't offer anything of relevance.


Morning sky.