Thursday 12 31 20 morning call

Thanks to blog reader Ely for the donation.

As usual, I use the last week of the year to ask for donations to show the appreciation for the 2020 season of the MSR blog.

No shots from yesterday, here's a trippy one by Ben Thouard.

6am significant buoy readings and discussion.
South shore
No southerly energy at the buoys, the Lahaina webcam is down, but there shouldn't be anything.

North shore
NW101
12.9ft @ 17s from 334° (NNW)

Waimea
7.6ft @ 15s from 315° (NW)

NW buoys are going up again, Pat Caldwell explains why in his last piece of Meteo Poetry on the NOAA website before retiring.

The next offspring in this extra-tropical cyclone family formed near 35N, 160E 12/28, raced ENE and reached the Date Line early Tuesday with hurricane-force winds. The track then turned more NE as it continued to deepen to 960 mb, reaching near 42N, 168W early Wednesday. The reduction in surf potential due to the fast track was well offset by the extreme winds acting upon existing high swell over the 310-330 degree band. Largest seas to 40 feet 12/30 are aimed NE of Hawaii, though 12/30 morning JASON satellite registered seas of 32-36 feet with a more direct aim at Hawaii in an area about 1000 nm away. Given the wave travel decay rule of thumb of half of the height reduced for each 1000 nm travel, that places deep water swell off Oahu late Thursday of long periods of 15-19 seconds, that would manifest at the peak of the event to giant levels, defined by the common larger, though less frequent, sets surpassing 40 feet on outer reefs in zones of high refraction. With a close source, events typically rise and fall faster, with the extreme heights likely centered overnight Thursday as the New Year rings in. It should be from 310-340 degrees, though dominant near 325-330 degrees. Heights should slowly settle down Friday though remain extra-large through the day. Heights should fall sharply Saturday to levels below the seasonal average by the afternoon from 310-360 degrees. Remnant shorter-period surf is expected for Sunday morning as a new event slowly fills in.

Below are the maps of Dec 29 through 31 that will help follow the above description. The low he describes is indicated by a red arrow.

Below are the graphs of NW101 and Waimea together with the Surfline forecast. I circled in red the new rise at the first and drew a red dotted line to indicate when the same rise should happen in Maui: in the second half of the afternoon. I doubt it will be particularly visible (maybe at sunset), as the waves on the north shore are going to be big all day anyway. If you follow the trajectory of the low above, you'll see that this swell will also have a relatively quickly changing direction starting from NW to NNW and then to N. At one point (sometimes tomorrow), Honolua will have no shadow from Molokai and be pumping with the straight offshore easterly trades. Hookipa might be surfable by few this morning, before possibly being off limits again tomorrow.

Meanwhile on Oahu, one solitary courageous soul is out at at maxed out Pipeline.

Wind map at noon .The other ones can be found at link n.-2 of GP's meteo websites list in the right column (click on animation of the 10 meter column).

Fetches map (circles legend: red: direct aim, blue: angular spreading, black: blocked).
North Pacific (about 4 days travel time from the NW corner of the North Pacific):

South Pacific (about 7 days travel time from east/west of New Zealand):

Morning sky.