It was big at Hookipa, only a few sailors ventured out. This is Ricardo Campello just making it over a fairly large wave. More photos in the album by Jimmy Hepp.
5am significant buoy readings and discussion.
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at the buoys. The Lahaina webcam reflects that.
North shore
NW101
7.6ft @ 13s from 338° (NNW)
Waimea
5.2ft @ 15s from 314° (NW)
8.8ft @ 8s from 73° (ENE)
4ft @ 12s from 311° (NW)
Pauwela
Pauwela
5.8ft @ 15s from 323° (NW)
3.3ft @ 12s from 323° (NW)
Below is the graph of the NW and Pauwela buoy, together with the Surfline forecast I posted yesterday. Let's first compare Pauwela with the forecast. The red arrows indicated the NW swell. As you can see, the forecasted graph is pretty much perfect, just 12 hours late. The black arrows indicated the easterly windswell, which is now ramping up (you can see the strong fetch in the fetches map below). This is a case of a pretty accurate forecast (despite the mentioned timing delay), notice how similar the two graphs (reality recorded by the buoy and prediction based on the WW3 model) are. The thick black line on the buoys' graph is the significant wave height (sum of all the energies on the water) and it's what you get if you check the buoys on the NOAA website. That can be very deceiving, as explained in more details in the posts under the label "how to read the Surfline forecast".
Now notice the blue arrow I put on the NW buoy graph to indicate the change of direction in the swell up there. It went more north than it originally started (338 this morning, vs 323 yesterday). That reflects the evolution of the fetch (of which I posted a collage of maps yesterday). As it often happens, the swell's slow decline might end up being barely noticeable in Maui, as the swell turns more north and gets here better. Some direction sensitive spots could actually be bigger today than yesterday. A classic example could be Honolua Bay (shadow line at 335), which yesterday wasn't particularly big ("only" head and a half) but gorgeous and glorious with tons of very skilled surfers getting long barrels. Just before the ladies contest (coming up Nov 25th) is the worse period for the "normal" surfers to go to the Bay: low chances of catching waves.
Now notice the blue arrow I put on the NW buoy graph to indicate the change of direction in the swell up there. It went more north than it originally started (338 this morning, vs 323 yesterday). That reflects the evolution of the fetch (of which I posted a collage of maps yesterday). As it often happens, the swell's slow decline might end up being barely noticeable in Maui, as the swell turns more north and gets here better. Some direction sensitive spots could actually be bigger today than yesterday. A classic example could be Honolua Bay (shadow line at 335), which yesterday wasn't particularly big ("only" head and a half) but gorgeous and glorious with tons of very skilled surfers getting long barrels. Just before the ladies contest (coming up Nov 25th) is the worse period for the "normal" surfers to go to the Bay: low chances of catching waves.
Once again that feeling of having said everything that needed to be said. What else? Hookipa's size? Easy: big. Good for surfing? Look at the wind map below and answer by yourself... Oh yeah, you can also guess something from the time I'm posting this: 7.45am. Feels good to sleep in once in a while...
Wind map at noon.
Kahului Tides
High Tide High Tide Low Tide Low Tide Sunrise Sunset
11:18a +2.1 5:15a +0.8 6:00p +0.1 6:42a 5:45p
North Pacific has a weakening NW fetch and a strong easterly windswell fetch.
Nothing from the south.
Morning sky.
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