Saturday 3 16 19 morning call

Before I start the regular call, here's an important announcement. The Ozolio representative who I've been trying to help find a site for a new Lahaina webcam, found a killer location. He needs to raise some money to get the camera going, after which it should be self sufficient thanks to the ads. I had the honor to be the first donor, please join the funding campaign on this page if you care. I'm tired to check Ala Moana and try to guess what's in Lahaina... we need a webcam on the spot, it's been more than a year! Thanks!
Btw, that's a photo I took last year during a really big swell. I filed it in a folder called Lahaina harbor, but now that I look at it looks more like Breakwall. Same thing.


Two longboard sessions for me yesterday. After the first one, I was very tempted by the lovely foiling conditions at the harbor, but I need to heal my trigger fingers and I decided no SUP foiling or windsurfing/foiling until they heal. IF they heal.


For the same reason I also skipped the early morning foiling action which happened to be quite good too. This is my boss Kim Ball and that reminds me to mention that this morning there will be the Hi-Tech organized interscholastic league surf contest at Flemings. Photo by Chris Pagdilao.


Just yesterday that I stressed out the importance of checking the buoys to decide if to go to Honolua, the Surfline buoy webpage was not working. Had I seen the buoy readings that I saw afterwards, I would have not driven over to the west side. But in the end it was a blessing, as it was small and very slow, but I got a few like that made it worth it.


Windsurfing at Hookipa has been ridiculously fun in the last three days. My buddies keep scoring, but I can't join them. This is my pick out of Jimmie Hepp's gallery of the day.


4am significant buoy readings
South shore
Lanai
1.5ft @ 17s from 225° (SW)

Lanai stubbornly keeps sensing a decent amount of SW energy. Yesterday the waves on the Lahaina side were knee to waist high.

North shore
NW101
3.9ft @ 11s from 319° (NW)

3.7ft @ 15s from 317° (NW)

Hanalei
3ft @ 11s from 342° (NNW)

2.5ft @ 14s from 339° (NNW)

2.5ft @ 16s from 316° (NW)

Waimea
2.8ft @ 12s from 332° (NNW)

2.8ft @ 16s from 313° (NW)

Pauwela
3.7ft @ 9s from 43° (NE)

2.9ft @ 11s from 325° (NW)

1.8ft @ 18s from 317° (NW)

Seen the zonal orientation of the jet stream during this week, we've seen many medium size NW swells rise and fall. The fast track across the great circle rays relative to Hawaii limits local surf potential is Pat Caldwell's better way of explaining that. Today we have another small long period swell picking up locally (18s reading at Pauwela), while the old one slowly fades (11s reading). On top of that the usual easterly windswell (9s reading). Will three swells in the water make for messy conditions and disorganized breaking patterns? Not at those small sizes is my guess. Actually, the lack of wind until 10am should make for pretty clean conditions. Stay tuned for a Hookipa beach report before 7am.

Wind map at noon. All purple till 10 before that.


North Pacific shows the strong fetch that is generating the upcoming giant swell already getting pretty close to us. The small W fetch off Japan will be responsible for another swell (this time just big, not giant) that will arrive Thursday. The small N fetch instead will joing the NW fetch and add to it a nice northerly component. We'll see that better tomorrow.


Nothing from the South. North Pacific's pumping swell after swell, South Pacific went back to sleep. Told you it's not time to talk about change of the season yet...


Morning sky.