Thursday 1 31 19 morning call

A windfoil session for me yesterday. The end of Janunary has had very poor conditions due to the NE winds (and the beginning of February looks even worse), but before that most of the month was pretty epic. This video shows 10 minutes of great waves at Pipe and Backdoor.

HANDODAT from Hammah Time on Vimeo.

5am significant buoy readings
South shore
Lanai
2.4ft @ 17s from 281° (WNW)

Here's the sentence of Pat Caldwell that made me put together the collage of the Maps of Jan 23, 24 and 25 below. Low pressure SE of New Zealand within 1/21-25 is giving a 1 foot swell out of 180-200 degrees 1/30. It could linger a few more days. More westerly exposures should have small breakers from the western north Pacific systems described above with peak days Thursday and Sunday.
Ala Moana did have some beautiful waist high plus long period waves yesterday, but reports from Lahaina were for ankle high. No sign of that southerly energy at the buoys, but the new WNW swell is making for the reported reading at Lanai, so I'm gonna guess more waves on the Kihei side. Check the webcams if you want to go there. Unfortunately, we can't check any webcam in Lahaina at the moment, please contact Ozolio if you have the possibility of hosting one.


North shore
NW101
8.6ft @ 17s from 311° (NW)

N
8.7ft @ 8s from 12° (NNE)

Hanalei
7.5ft @ 16s from 309° (WNW)

Waimea
6ft @ 16s from 302° (WNW)

Mokapu
8.1ft @ 9s from 37° (NE)

Pauwela is down, but thanks to other buoys we can see that the current WNW swell has risen during the night and will peak (coherently with the Surfline forecast) during the day. Unfortunately, and once again, the quality of those beautiful long period distantly generated waves is going to be completely destroyed by the strong NE winds (which will intensify during the afternoon) and by the related windswell that we see at the N and Mokapu buoys. Another day in which most north shore's breaks will be unsurfable. Get used to it, as shown in the 10 days Windguru table below, the beginning of February doesn't look any better.


Wind map at noon calls for a Kihei downwind run.


In the North Pacific yesterday's fetch is now oriented much better towards us (instead of SW of us) and Surfline calls for 6.3ft 15s from 307 on Sunday. The NNE fetch associated with the stubborn local low continues to generate significant short period stormy energy.


South Pacific has a fetch in the Tasman Sea.


Morning sky.