Saturday 11 29 20 morning call

No photo of the day, this is the trailer for the IWT movie that will be shown tonight at the MACC at 7.30pm. Food vendors from 5.30pm.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Lanai
2.5ft @ 17s from 183° (S)

First good news: the Lanai buoy is back! Judging from the graph below, it must have been back online for a few days already, but only now they added back to the Surfline buoy page (link n.11).
Second good news: it's reading 2.5ft 17s! This is the swell generated by the fetch I posted the collage of yesterday. The perplexing thing is that, according to the graph, yesterday at dawn it was already reading around 1.5ft 18s, which should have been clearly visible at the Lahaina webcam, but it wasn't (I checked multiple times also during the day). Not sure how to explain that, and not sure what to expect to see today, but there should most definitely be waves somewhere on the south shore. As usual, check the Lahaina webcam if interested, maybe have a look at the Kihei ones too.


There you go: Kalama park seems to have waves bigger than Lahaina.


North shore
NW101
6.4ft @ 14s from 345° (NNW)

Hanalei
5.7ft @ 14s from 323° (NW)

Waimea
3.7ft @ 14s from 308° (WNW)

1.5ft @ 12s from 315° (NW)

Pauwela

8.7ft @ 9s from 74° (ENE)

4ft @ 15s from 323° (NW)

2.2ft @ 3s from 59° (ENE)

 

The Pauwela graph below shows that the NW swell (light blue line) peaked yesterday and now should very slowly (NW buoy still up to 6.4ft 14s) decline throughout the day. This decline will be hard to notice, since the main energy remains that of the ENE windswell (dark blue line) which is still pumping at almost 9ft 9s. Similar to yesterday, the conditions on the north shore will be very stormy, with Hookipa likely blown out and all over the place. Seek sheltered spots. Talking about which, an Hi-Tech organized interscholastic surf contest will be held at the harbor jetty all day.

Wind map at noon (the other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column).

The whole NW quarter of the north Pacific is involved in a pretty wide cyclonic circulation, but the winds are relatively light and only a couple of areas deserved the red circle. The most relevant fetch remains the windswell one, as it's sitting right on top of us.


Nothing from the south.


Morning sky.

7.15am hookipa has the mix of swells reported by the buoys. All over the place and sizes. Nobody out. 

2

Friday 2 28 20 morning call

My pick of Jimmie Hepp's album of the windsurfing action at Hookipa.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
No southerly energy at Barbers, check the Lahaina webcam. If there is something, it should be from the SSE fetch circled in the map collage below (Feb 21, 22 and 23). Unfortunately, it looks flat and windy.


North shore
NW101
9.6ft @ 15s from 315° (NW)

Hanalei
6.2ft @ 15s from 314° (NW)

Waimea
4.9ft @ 16s from 312° (NW)

2.8ft @ 11s from 319° (NW)

Pauwela
8.5ft @ 9s from 70° (ENE)            

3.9ft @ 16s from 317° (NW)

2.7ft @ 4s from 66° (ENE)

The new NW swell will be on the rise all day, while the ENE windswell keeps pumping. Below is the collage of NW001 and Pauwela graphs together with the Surfline forecast, which, as usual these days, seems to be a bit late (the 6am value is only 2.2ft 16s, while Pauwela already reads 4ft 16s at 4am). Seen the 9.6ft 15s reading at the NW buoy, It might even go a bit higher than the predicted Surfline peak of 6ft 15s. North shore will be windy again, another cracking day for the windsurfers (yesterday there were two guys still out at Hookipa at 6.40pm!).

Pat Caldwell still not posting, below is the collage of the fetch maps of Feb 24, 25 and 26 that shows the fairly westerly position of the fetch. Not the best for Honolua, which might have something nonetheless, and if it does, it will be inconsistent due to the direction that is around 315 (shadow line at 335).


Wind map at noon (the other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column).


North Pacific has a small WNW fetch and the windswell one.


Nothing from the south.


Morning sky.

Thursday 2 27 20 morning call

No photos from yesterday, here's a reminder of the windsurfing movie coming up this Saturday at the MACC.



4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
No southerly readings at Barbers, check the Lahaina webcam (there's nothing).

North shore
NW001
4.2ft @ 11s from 341° (NNW)                        

3.3ft @ 18s from 332° (NNW)

Hanalei

3ft @ 12s from 328° (NW)

2.1ft @ 11s from 334° (NNW)

Waimea

2.6ft @ 11s from 335° (NNW)

Pauwela

6.6ft @ 9s from 62° (ENE)

4.5ft @ 7s from 52° (ENE)

4ft @ 12s from 330° (NW)

 

The NW swell went down quite a bit yesterday afternoon (so much so that, contrary to what I wrote, the change was noticeable) and today should continue to decrease. With a 4am reading of 4ft 12s, it doesn't look like the most exciting day for surfing anywhere. I mean, a 4ft 12s swell would be extremely fun IF there was no wind and there were no other swells. But we got both, so the conditions on the north shore will be the usual choppy mess.

As predicted, Honolua yesterday morning was inconsistent (due to the westerly direction), but beautiful, head and a half to double with occasional bigger sets and packed. Today it will be much smaller, possibly even too small at times. Tough call for a good surfing spot, I'd rater seek a sheltered spot on the north shore. Good luck.

 

Below is the graph of the NW buoy on which I circled the rise of the next NW swell. 18s take 14h to get here, so those 3.3ft (minus the decay for extra travel) should arrive locally around 6pm, which means that the forerunners could be observed already in the early to mid afternoon.

 

Even though I am thoroughly enjoying it thanks to the variety of disciplines I do, this has sure been a very windy winter. Much windier than average. At least so far we had a lot of easterly days, which makes surfing ok in the early morning, but this week is a particularly bad one (from the surfing point of view), since the wind direction is around 75 degrees, which I often cite as ideal for the practice of wind related sports, as it ends up being amplified by the Haleakala and perfectly side shore. If it's good for windsurfing, it ain't good for surfing. Hang in there, next week looks better both from the intensity and direction points of view. Still windy though.


Wind map at noon (the other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column).

North Pacific has a tiny WNW fetch and the windswell one.


South Pacific has a nice fetch deep down in the Tasman Sea.


Morning sky.

Wednesday 2 26 20 morning call

The XL NW swell picked up as predicted yesterday, this is my pick of Jimmie Hepp's album of the windsurfing action at Hookipa.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Barbers is useless when there's a big NW swell, so we have to check the Lahaina webcam. As one would expect, no wrap is present (way too west) and it's flat.

North shore
NW001
6.9ft @ 13s from 334° (NNW)

4.9ft @ 10s from 360° (N)

Hanalei

9.8ft @ 14s from 327° (NW)

Waimea
9ft @ 15s from 322° (NW)

Pauwela
8.3ft @ 17s from 322° (NW)

5.1ft @ 10s from 35° (NE)

3.8ft @ 6s from 53° (ENE)

 

Below are the graphs of NW, Waimea and Pauwela together with yesterday's Surfline forecast. I squeezed in Waimea, because yesterday afternoon I had the Pipeline webcam on the screen while at work, and around 2-3pm it was a very doable and clean head and a half to double (50 guys out). Then one sets started capping on the second reef and everybody started scratching for the horizon and from then on, it was a steady rise that pretty much meant the end of the surfing session. More and more sets started breaking on the second reef and soon after on the third. The inside turned into a mess of giant water chunks, with a few leftover bodyboarders trying to make sense of it with very limited success. I should have taken screen shots to show you the before and after, but was too busy to do so.
The whole thing is simply described by the steep rise of the blue line on Waimea's graph. From 2 to 10ft in 12h is a pretty steep rise for a 18s swell.

Notice also that (as suggested yesterday) the Surfline forecast was a good 12h too late (blue arrows on the right). The WW3 model (on which all wave forecast websites are based), has been early instead lately, so my guess is that Surfline is compensating that, by introducing a delay to it (a bit too big, imo). Whatever it is and nonetheless, this picture illustrates why Surfline remains my website of choice: the open ocean swell prediction graphs (links n.14 and 15 in the GP's meteo websites list on the right column of this blog) are comparable to what the graph of the buoys will look like. Once again, those predictions have nothing to do with the so called "Hawaiian scale", which I never use (because it's unscientific and makes no sense at all).

 

I also never check the spots forecast, because (as presumptuous as it sounds), I know better. Meaning, if I know the open ocean swells (what the buoys measure), I can predict the size at the different spots, better than any computer based model. And if you guys start paying attention to the buoy readings (size, period and direction) and the related size of the breaking waves at your favorite spots, it only takes a few months of observations to acquire that local knowledge. Obviously, the more you do that, the better you'll become at doing your own forecast.

The other reason why I am a Surfline subscriber is the Hawaii buoy page (link n.11), which is where I grab and post the 4am readings.

 

As suggested by the NW graph, the swell is now on the way down, but don't expect to notice much of that in the water. I mean, when a swell goes from XL to L, it doesn't really change much for most surfers: it's still big enough for most spots to be unsurfable (that is the case of Hookipa). Seen the fresh trades, the place to be is obviously the west side, with Honolua providing classic big barreling conditions (so obviously, that that's exactly when I don't bother going, as it's going to be packed... but I would love to receive some photos!). Seek sheltered spots if you're on the north shore.

 

Wind map at noon (the other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column).

North Pacific has a NW and the windswell fetch.


South Pacific has a weak fetch in the Tasman Sea.


Morning sky.

7am hookipa has inconsistent 12s nw sets in the head high range (on the rise). 

Bit of wind and texture. 

5.5

Tuesday 2 25 20 morning call

No photos from yesterday, this is a wonderful human being called Josh Bogle who, with no legs and almost no hands, recently started surfing and is obviously enjoying it. Thanks for the inspiration, brother! Photo by Tomoko.



4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Barbers
1ft @ 14s from 230° (SW)
A tiny bit of long period SW energy at Barbers, check the Lahaina webcam to see what's there (not much).

North shore
NW001
7.4ft @ 11s from 325° (NW)

5.9ft @ 18s from 358° (N)

4.7ft @ 10s from 355° (N)

Hanalei

6.2ft @ 12s from 333° (NNW)                        

1ft @ 20s from 346° (NNW)

Waimea

5.4ft @ 12s from 332° (NNW)

Pauwela

4.4ft @ 9s from 84° (E)

2.3ft @ 5s from 69° (ENE)

2.2ft @ 12s from 328° (NW)

0.4ft @ 20s from 340° (NNW)

 

Lots of new energies at the buoys, some of which on unclear sources. Pat Caldwell didn't post his usual narrative, which would have helped greatly to shed some light on them, so I'll try to figure it our myself.

Let's first focus on the 11-12s energy. The readings at the upstream buoys show that that is going to rise locally throughout the day, some 12 hours before the long period one.
Below is the collage of the fetch maps of Feb 22, 23and 24. My best guess is that this energy comes from the head of the fetch that was pretty close to the islands on the 24th. I circled it in blue, as it's an angular spreading one. The long period swell comes from farther away, both spatially and temporally. I originally circled the fetch in red, and now added a red arrow to indicate it.

Below is the collage of the graphs of NW and Pauwela, together with the Surfline forecast. I left the indication of the shorter period prediction on the last one: 5.6ft 11s at noon, which seems very much in line with the upstream buoys readings. The much bigger long period swell (first indicated in light blue and the in dark blue) instead, is predicted to only pick up during the night (only 2ft 20 at 6pm), but the buoys seem to show an earlier timing. 6ft 18s at 4am at the NW buoy, in fact, will take only 14h to get here, which means that sunset time should see much more energy that what Surfline thinks.

In other simpler words, the energy should pick up steadily all day, first much more noticeable in the 11-12s band and then with much longer period (18-20s) in the afternoon. Hookipa should have waves already in the morning, I'm not even going to try to guess the size, but I will report from the beach before 7.30am. Uff, thank god not every day the calls are this difficult!


Wind map at noon (the other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column).



North Pacific has a NW fetch and the windswell one.


Nothing from the south.


Morning sky.

Monday 2 24 20 morning call

The fun size of the waves at Hookipa yesterday morning confirmed my easy high crowd advisory call. Didn't count them, but from Lanes to Pavils, must have been around 80. This is a shot I took after my session, don't be fooled, it's a close out.


This one I took before my session.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Nothing at Barbers, the Lahaina webcam shows tiny waves.

North shore
NW101
2.7ft @ 12s from 310° (WNW)

Hanalei
2.9ft @ 12s from 303° (WNW)

Waimea
2ft @ 13s from 304° (WNW)

Pauwela
4.5ft @ 9s from 84° (E)

2.3ft @ 12s from 326° (NW)

1.6ft @ 11s from 337° (NNW)

 

Yes, this NW swell was smaller than predicted. The Pauwela graph below shows that it barely reached 4ft and now is declining. This morning's readings are far from exciting, Hookipa might still have occasional head highers, but the average size might easily be smaller than that. The E windswell is another option on the eastern exposures. Not much else happening today (and most likely tomorrow), it's going to be a relatively small day for the winter.

Wind map at noon (the other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column). Early morning should be calm.

North Pacific has a WNW and the windswell fetch.


Nothing from the south.


Morning sky.

6.30am hookipa is head high in most sets (occasionally bigger) and relatively clean. 

7.5

Sunday 2 23 20 morning call

My pick of Jimmie Hepp's daily gallery of the windsurfing action at Hookipa.


Might not be as dynamic as that above, but uncle Eddie's little harbor wave was sure very peaceful. Love it for foiling when it's like that.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
No indication of southerly energy at Barbers, check the Lahaina webcam if interested.

North shore
NW001
5.2ft @ 12s from 300° (WNW)

Hanalei
3.8ft @ 13s from 322° (NW)

Waimea
4.1ft @ 14s from 323° (NW)

Pauwela
5.4ft @ 9s from 83° (E)            

3.5ft @ 14s from 326° (NW)

3.1ft @ 6s from 70° (ENE)

 

Below are the graphs of NW and Pauwela together with the Surfline forecast. The NW swell picked very slowly yesterday afternoon (light blue line on both graphs) and today will probably reach around 4ft 14s and then slowly decline in period in the afternoon and tomorrow. A relatively small swell for the winter standards, the waves at Hookipa might still be a bit overhead, I'll possibly post a beach report later. Clean conditions and friendly size call for a high crowd advisory on a gorgeous Sunday morning.

Wind map at noon (the other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column).

North Pacific pretty active with a new WNW fetch, the third day of wave generation of the NW one closer to us (10.6ft 16s from 325 predicted by Surfline on Wednesday) and the windswell fetch.


Still a sliver of SSE fetch in the Southern Pacific.


Morning sky.

Saturday 2 22 20 morning call

Saturday 2 29 at the MACC the International Windsurfing Tour movie "Riders of the liquid plains" will premiere at 7.30pm (food available before that). Should be a good one.


This is my pick of Jimmie Hepp's album of the daily action at Hookipa.


4am significant buoy readings and discussion
South shore
Not much at Barbers, check the Lahaina webcam if interested.

North shore
NW001
3.2ft @ 15s from 313° (NW)

Hanalei
1.3ft @ 18s from 318° (NW)

Waimea
1.1ft @ 18s from 320° (NW)

Pauwela
6.6ft @ 9s from 81° (E)

3ft @ 5s from 81° (E)

2.8ft @ 11s from 359° (N)            

 

New NW swell on the rise all day, although a lot smaller than forecasted by the WW3 model. Here's how Pat Caldwell described the evolution of the fetch.
A zonal jet stream has held this week. Such patterns steer surface low pressure systems rapidly east, which reduces surf potential. The second in a pair of events is due on Saturday.
The first event generated 2/16-17 east of the Date Line is steadily dropping 2/21. It should fade out by Saturday.
The source for the second event, due locally Saturday, formed east of the Kuril Islands 2/17-18. It started off with severe gales over the 300-315 degree band. The winds weakened to gales as it crossed the Date Line 2/19 and moved east of the Hawaii swell window 2/20.
The onset at NOAA NW Hawaii buoys 51001 and 51101 is slow relative to the Wave Watch III prediction, which also called too early and too high the first event aforementioned. This suggests surf locally to build Saturday morning instead of Friday night as the models suggest. The event should be filled in by Saturday PM from 300-330 degrees. It should peak overnight Saturday night just below average, with a slow decline into Monday from 315-345 degrees.

With no computer, I didn't save the fetches maps, so we don't have the important support of those to help follow uncle Pat's narrative. What counts is that with only 3ft 15s at the NW buoy, we shouldn't expect much out of this event. Hanalei (back online since a few days) and Waimea only show 1ft 18s, so the early morning locally will mostly see the easterly 9s period energy. Hookipa will have relatively small (still possibly head high) and clean waves, eastern exposures will have bigger size. The NW swell will start to be visible locally only in the afternoon.

The trades will finally give us a break for the next three mornings, before returning with average strength on Tuesday and before becoming pretty strong again over the next weekend.

Wind map at noon (the other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column).

North Pacific has a wide but not particularly intense yet NW fetch and a small windswell one. The NW fetch should intensify and generate and extra large swell that Surfline predicts to peak at 12ft 15s from 325 on Wednesday morning.


South Pacific sill has the S-SSE fetch we saw yesterday (the Tasman Sea one is gone).


Morning sky.