Tuesday 10 22 19 morning call

Another fun day for the windsurfers at Hookipa, despite the overall smaller waves. This is my pick of Jimmie Hepp's daily album.


Reader James Dawson sent me some shots he took yesterday at Makena. Doesn't take much of a shorebreak if you place your camera in the right spot...


7am significant buoy readings and discussion.
South shore
Barbers
1.7ft @ 13s from 189° (S)

Lanai
1.3ft @ 13s from 182° (S)

Numers getting progressively smaller at the buoys, and that is reflected in the small size the Lahaina webcam shows, but if you wait long enough, there's still waves like that. Check it out yourself before going.


North shore
NW101
5.5ft @ 9s from 3° (N)

Waimea
1.8ft @ 9s from 6° (N)

1.2ft @ 11s from 329° (NW)

0.8ft @ 13s from 324° (NW)

Pauwela
5.4ft @ 9s from 77° (ENE)

NW energy disappeared at Pauwela. The reason why you still see a sliver of it at Waimea is that the latter is not exposed to the windswell as the former, so its sensor can still feel it. The N short period energy at the NW buoy is interesting and might be due to the local circulation, but shouldn't make its way here... just yet. So today we're left with pretty much only the windswell and the waves are going to be at most head high at Hookipa. I mean, 5.4ft 9s is not a bad swell, but it won't be as clean as the long period Hagibis episode we've just had. Let's see what Pat Caldwell foresees for the immediate future:

A low pressure tracked east from the Kuril Islands along 40N 10/19-20. ASCAT satellite showed an area of gales to severe gales out near 160E 10/20. ASCAT showed a weakening by 10/21 as the low approached the Date Line. Seas grew only to about 20 feet beyond 2000 nm away. Only a small bump is expected from 300-315 degrees building Thursday and dropping Friday from this direction, as surf from more N direction takes over.

Below is the collage of the maps of Oct 18-20 that clearly shows the moderate fetch he's pointing out.


Wind map at noon.


North Pacific has a deepening low that is relatively close. At the moment of this snapshot, its fetch is aiming to our west, but as the red arrow indicates, the low will track towards the Gulf of Alaska and have plenty direct aim towards us. That's the surf with more N direction uncle Pat was referring to.
Much bigger waves next week, thanks to that low just east of Japan that will intensify greatly and put itself in a good position to generate the biggest swell of the winter season yet (Jaws opener): 10ft 15s from 323 predicted by Surfline for Tuesday 28 with solid size already showing on Monday. Good, my antibiotic cycle is due on that day, hopefully I'll be all ready to go.


South Pacific has a multicolor fetch SE of New Zealand. That gives me the opportunity of mentioning the fetches color code for the new readers:
red: direct aim
blue: not direct aim, but possible angular spreading
black: blocked
Sometimes I use yellow too, when the fetch is in an area outside the great circle ray map on the right and I'm not really sure if it's aimed at us.


Morning sky.