Those waves are deceivingly fast. Most of the times, in fact, the kick out looks like this. This particular one looks pretty spectacular, because of the wave on the foreground that makes the surfer looks small and the jump even higher than it was.
4am significant buoy readings
South shore
Lanai
2ft @ 14s from 269° (W)
As a consequence of the westerly position the fetches have had lately, Lanai has been recording a small portion on westerly energy in the last 5 days or so. Small waves in Kihei should continue. Might hit up to Ukumehame, but not as much Lahaina.
North shore
NW101
2.8ft @ 18s from 290° (WNW)
NW001
3.7ft @ 18s from 312° (NW)
N
7.7ft @ 9s from 20° (NNE)
Hanalei
1.5ft @ 20s from 304° (WNW)
Barbers
0.6ft @ 22s from 303° (WNW)
Mokapu
8.1ft @ 9s from 38° (NE)
6.2ft @ 11s from 43° (NE)
New long period WNW swell starting to slowly rise at the outer buoys. The two NW ones offer 290 and 312 as directions, and that's a clear indicator that buoys have trouble detecting the exact direction of a new still low swell if there's other energy in the water (and there's plenty, but I didn't report it because not significant for our purpose). My recommendation is to never take the direction indication as an absolutely correct value. Rather, try to remember the position and shape of the original fetch, and you'll have a much better idea of the characteristics and directional spread of a swell.
To help you with that, below is the collage of the maps of Jan 26, 27 and 28, which show an initial position between 280 and 300, before becoming between 290 and 310 on the 28th. So another pretty westerly one. Thanks to the epic post Buoys to Maui travel times and Maui's shadow lines we know that those 1.5ft 20s registered by Hanalei at 4am will take 6h to get to Maui, which give us a time of 10am. At the same time (or thanks to the same post, I should say), we know that those 3ish feet 18s at the NW buoys will take 14h to get here, which give us a time of 6pm. Waimea doesn't report it at 4am, but Barbers has a low 22s reading, which is consistent with all of the above.
That indicates a very slow start of this swell (as the distant location of the fetch suggests) and I honestly doubt we will be able to detect it in the water until the late afternoon, considering that the NNE energy is still pretty strong, as the Mokapu buoy suggests (Pauwela is down). The reading at the N buoy, seems to suggest a down trend for it, but I doubt things will change much today. Once again, look for spots that like the NNE more than the WNW is my recommendation.
Wind map at noon. Seems like the wind might start turning a little more east, but still not regular trades direction which is predicted to very temporarily return on Friday only.
Western North Pacific has a strong fetch, but only the part circled in red is directly oriented towards us. The bulk of this fetch (blue circle) is aiming south of us, we might get some angular spreading though.
Nothing from the South.
Morning sky.
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