Thursday 10 31 19 morning call

There was enough wind at Hookipa to run the Youth Division. Here's my pick of Jimmie Hepp's album. This is the IWT one and this is the FishBowlDiaries one.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Barbers
2.2ft @ 13s from 210° (SSW)

Lanai
2.3ft @ 13s from 218° (SW)

With the NW swell declining, now the buoys can register the energy from the south again. Those are decent numbers and there were some waist high sets on the webcam yesterday at sunset. That should be no surprise for the readers who keep track of the fetches happened last week. I posted this collage of the maps of Oct 20 through 25 already on the 27, but here it is again.


Morning high tide is not helping, but here's a over knee high one. Check the webcam yourself before going.


North shore
NW101
5.3ft @ 10s from 353° (N)

3.9ft @ 12s from 334° (NNW)

Waimea
4ft @ 11s from 356° (N)

3.8ft @ 13s from 333° (NNW)

Pauwela
6.7ft @ 13s from 333° (NNW)

5.2ft @ 8s from 44° (NE)

 

Below are the graphs of the three reported buoys all of them showing a downward trend in both size and period. Pauwela is the last of the chain, so it's still up to a considerable 6.7ft 13s from 333, but that is going to slowly decline all day. Notice the shorter period more northerly energy too, coming from another source. With good size waves still in the water all along the north shore, Hookipa will be well overhead.

Wind map at noon. No chances for the last day of the Aloha Classic.


North Pacific has two NW fetches.


South Pacific has a couple of fetches too.


Morning sky.

Wednesday 10 30 19 morning call

Not enough wind at the Aloha Classic to run the double elimination, but they sure tried. Jimmie Hepp was there and I picked this photo out of this album.


Meanwhile, the surfers were tackling some big waves at Jaws. This is Sky Lickle on a bomb. Very impressive from such a young gal, even Kai Lenny left a comment "she was charging!".


5am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Still too much NW energy in the water for the buoys to detect whatever little one is from the S instead. We look at the webcam and we see that there's not much. Check it out yourself.


North shore
NW101
6.4ft @ 9s from 357° (N)

5.4ft @ 13s from 316° (NW)

4.1ft @ 12s from 330° (NW)

Waimea
5.3ft @ 15s from 330° (NW)

3.9ft @ 13s from 329° (NW)

3.8ft @ 9s from 2° (N)

2.9ft @ 11s from 332° (NNW)

Pauwela
7.7ft @ 15s from 335° (NNW)

5.5ft @ 12s from 332° (NNW)

1.8ft @ 10s from 350° (N)

Multiple declining periods (typical at the end of a swell) at all the buoys. Notice the more northerly directions, that means a more direct hit for most of the north (and west) shore spots, so sizes will still be up although on a declining trend. I don't normally surf Hookipa at 7.7ft 15s, and might not even check it out (ok, the lack of wind will make it deserve a quick look). Know your sizes for each single spot and you'll always know where to go.

Wind map at noon. One last chance (tomorrow looks much worse) for the Aloha Classic, but I give it an extremely low chance with that direction.


North Pacific has a couple of small NW fetches.


South Pacific has a couple of small S fetches.


Morning sky. Notice a hint of counterclockwise rotation that will not favor the trades.

Tuesday 10 29 19 morning call

The single elimination of the Aloha Classic was completed yesterday in a day of massive waves, very difficult conditions and dramatic action. The winner was Antoine Martin, here in a photo by Jimmie Hepp from this album. The contest is not over yet, depending on conditions, in the next three days they can still run the double elimination of both men and women and the youths.


This morning I didn't have time to pick a photo from the other two albums I quickly found on Facebook: the FishBowlDiaries one and the IWT one. Here's a video quickly slapped together by Alex Aguera, who won the first edition in 1984 (the sound track shows that).
I did find this incredible shot by John Carter on the PWA site though. Don't think it was yesterday though.


With the high size and long period, the waves were able to wrap around Molokai and into Honolua.


3am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Buoys still only showing NW energy, the only way to find out what's over there is to look at the Lahaina webcam.

North shore
NW101
7.4ft @ 9s from 349° (NNW)

7.3ft @ 14s from 313° (NW)

Waimea
8.1ft @ 15s from 325° (NW)

Pauwela
7.8ft @ 15s from 325° (NW)

3.6ft @ 13s from 320° (NW)

2.6ft @ 8s from 72° (ENE)

Buoys are still up, today it's going to be another day of big waves on the north shore. Hookipa way too big for most surfers, look elsewhere. There should be no wind at all, until 9-10am.

Wind map at noon surprisingly shows 15-20 knots at Hookipa, and if that really happens it's very possible that they will continue the contest.


North Pacific has a moderate NW fetch just offshore the Kuril islands. I apologize, lately I've been calling that the Aleutians, which instead are the chain I posted the zoomed in detail yesterday.


South Pacific has nothing of relevance.


Morning sky.

Monday 10 28 19 morning call

Great conditions for the start of the Aloha Classic. My pick of Jimmie Hepp's album: Tatiana Howard.


My pick of FishBowlDiaries album: coworker Russ Faurot. I told him he better make his heat or else he would be back to work. It worked.


My pick of IWT's album: Kai Lenny. He'll be one to watch today. He's in the first and very stacked up heat of the day together with Thomas Traversa, Alex Mussolini and Diony Guadagnino. Heats ladder on this page.


3am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
The buoys are registering only the wrapping NW energy (which won't show anywhere on the south shore), so there's no way to know how much S energy is in the water today. We can only use the fetch maps (of which I posted a collage yesterday), according to which there should be a tiny bit of something to keep it from going completely flat. But if the sun is out, don't even waste the time to check it, just go to the Lahaina webcam and see.

North shore
NW101
9.4ft @ 16s from 309° (WNW)

Waimea
6.5ft @ 15s from 315° (NW)

Pauwela
5ft @ 17s from 323° (NW)

3.1ft @ 9s from 21° (NNE)

Below is the graph of the three reported buoys that shows the swell peaking around 8pm at the NW buoy. 10ft over there, 6+ at Waimea and 5 and Pauwela is a pretty classic decrease of energy due to two factors:
1) travel
2) WNW original direction.

Overall, at the moment the swell is still of a very manageable size locally. That is a good thing for the contest, as the wind is going to be pretty light and tomorrow will probably be even lighter (or at least turning more and more offshore, so very questionable). Good news also for the surfers, as Hookipa will be surfable in the morning. 


The picture below shows an extremely long front which is approaching the islands and is the reason for the trades direction to go more and more to the east and then SE.


Wind map at noon.


The low that originally produced the current swell is now well behind the Kurils and the only "usable" fetch is now aiming well NE of us. We might still get some angular spreading. But notice the well extended windswell fetch NE of us. The related NE energy will provide fun size waves (with great wind conditions) for the second half of the week.


South Pacific has a small, but nice and well positioned S fetch.


Morning sky.

Sunday 10 28 19 morning call

The waves at Hookipa were a little smaller than the day before, but not by much. With the Aloha Classic on the starting block, lots of photographer were shooting the best windsurfers in the world. Here's my pick of FishBowlDiaries album.


The windsurfing world has two main tours at the moment: PWA and IWT. Both will be joined in the Aloha Classic which is the only event that will showcase all of the best windsurfers in the world and both tour will crown their champions (for un update on the PWA rankings, this is a video by Ben Profitt ). One of the pros that is rarely seen in Maui for example is Alex Mussolini. My pick of Si Crowther album.


My pick of Jimmie Hepp's album shows a sailor that while he's bottom turning on a beautiful wave, he's also kinda top turning on a cross chop coming from the east, a pretty classic feature of very windy places like Hookipa.


6am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Barbers
0.9ft @ 16s from 211° (SW)

Lanai
0.9ft @ 16s from 200° (SSW)

Almost a foot 16s at the buoys out of a small fetch SE of New Zealand a week ago (below). The webcam shows very small waves, so I wouldn't be any excited. Check it out yourself.
Below is the collage of the fetch maps of Oct 20 through 25 which shows decent fetches unfortunately often partially blocked by New Zealand. The waves should increase compared to today though.



North shore
NW101
4.6ft @ 17s from 303° (WNW)

Waimea
3.8ft @ 10s from 351° (N)

1.1ft @ 20s from 316° (NW)

Pauwela
4.6ft @ 9s from 14° (NNE)                        

1.1ft @ 20s from 334° (NNW)

 

The short period closely generated northerly energy is now coming more and more from the NNE and declining, while the forerunning long period energy of the distantly generated first pulse of the big NW swell is already at the buoys. Not particularly impressive just yet, the waves should be barely head high to start with, but slowly increasing throughout all day with the biggest days predicted to be Monday and Tuesday.

This is the latest Windguru table. The wind model I use for the daily noon map confirms decent wind for the next three days, and if they decide to start the contest today (very likely, but not 100% guaranteed), that's all they gonna get. That five days in a row rule is a big limitation, but they can still pull off a memorable contest in the first three days. There should be a live streaming, check the Aloha Classic page.


Wind map at noon.


North Pacific shows a strong NW fetch that is unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) partially blocked by the Kuril Islands.


Here's a detail of the block induced by that chain of islands. There's some corridors here and there.


South Pacific has a partially blocked fetch S of New Zealand.


Morning sky.

6:30 a.m. hookipa has well overhead waves with texture and not particularly clean conditions. From the distance it looked like a 5

Saturday 10 26 19 morning call

The waves came up a lot yesterday, this is my pick of Jimmie Hepp's daily album of the windsurfing action at Hookipa. That's a sail with a 100% visibility, never seen anything like that, must be a prototype.


A friend of mine went to Honolua. She said 30 minutes between sets like this.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion.
South shore
Unfortunately this morning the Surfline buoy page where I grab the readings (link n.11) is not available (at least at the moment). Since there's now a webcam in Lahaina, just look at it and you'll know what's there. Shouldn't be much.

North shore
NW1010

6.8ft @ 11s from 6° (N)

5.4ft @ 10s from 11° (NNE)

There was actually this one reading at one point (now it disappeared too). Considering that yesterday the NW buoy was reading 10ft 12s, we can see that the current swell is going to be declining all day. It should still have a pretty good size in the morning, hopefully I'll be able to report from the beach.

I'd like to analyze where the yesterday's (and today's) swell came from, 'cause I confess I couldn't really remember the fetch of it. Let's first read Pat Caldwell's description of it:
A low pressure trough just north of Hawaii within 30-35N 10/23-24 had a long fetch of near gales with pockets to marginal gales aimed highest just west of Kauai. The system is weakening 10/25 as the aim became more westerly away a from Hawaii.
NW NOAA buoys 51001 and 51101 10/25 show much more size in deep water swell height relative to the PacIOOS/CDIP Waimea, Oahu buoy, reflecting the aim of the event just west of Hawaii.

Below is the map of Oct 24. I introduced a new color in the international system of fetch circling: white is for the fetch that I complete ignored... I didn't even circle it! My first partial excuse is that the great rays map on the right didn't have it highlighted, as it was aiming west of us. The second is that my fetches map are just one sample a day. This fetch probably moved in a better position (with a better aim) later that day.

But overall, a flagrant miss. The more I observe angular spreadings, the more I learn about them. The waves produced by a fetch start dispersing angularly pretty much right away.

With Surfline failing to provide the main page why I actually pay for my annual subscription (the buoys), I feel entitled to post more than the "free" two days of the long term forecast. They underpredicted yesterday's size, as they show today as the peak (which is not). The purple line is the next XL large swell.


With the imminent start of the waiting period of the Aloha Classic, here's a bit of bad news for the organizers. Wave-wise, there's no doubt that the first 5 days will see the biggest waves, so it would seem an easy choice. But, there two but's:
But n.1: it's possible that there will be a window in which the waves are going to be too big even for the best in the world. The good news from this point of view, is that at least the fetch is remote, so there should be lulls in the sets that will allow the sailors to make it out. Long heat durations are likely in those days.

But n.2: all of a sudden, the wind on Wednesday looks too light (and even worse for the rest of the table) and that would reduce the number of days to four. Let me remind you that this year they have only 5 consecutive days to run Pro men and women and youth.

It's also possible that Maui will do its usual magic and it will result in one of the most epic editions ever. It will be fun to find out.


Well, finally the buoy page is now available, I don't feel like changing all I wrote above, so here comes the 4am significant buoy readings and discussion.
South shore
Barbers
1.9ft @ 12s from 311° (NW)                        

1ft @ 14s from 223° (SW)

0.5ft @ 18s from 215° (SW)

Lanai
1.3ft @ 11s from 295° (WNW)

1.1ft @ 5s from 162° (SSE)

1.1ft @ 14s from 214° (SW)

Small energy of different periods, I wouldn't be too excited about the half foot 18s at Barbers. The webcam looks pretty small.

North shore
NW101
7.2ft @ 11s from 6° (N)

4.5ft @ 10s from 11° (NNE)

Waimea
5.8ft @ 12s from 345° (NNW)

Pauwela
6.5ft @ 12s from 333° (NNW)

3.9ft @ 9s from 16° (NNE)

Below are the graphs of Waimea and Pauwela that clearly show that the swell peaked yesterday and will be declining all day. 6.5ft 12s from 333 is a really fun size to start the day with. Hookipa will still be well overhead.

Wind map at noon.


North Pacific has the strong NW fetch and a much smaller/weaker NE one.


South Pacific has a fairly strong storm in the Tasman Sea, but the best fetch is blocked by New Zealand.


Morning sky.