Yesterday was another day of large waves, but the swell declined enough that Hookipa was surfable in the afternoon and with the light pre-front kona wind the conditions were nearing a 10.
This instead is Honolua Bay on Saturday (this wave was obviously a 10): Kevin Sullivan, photo my OneMoreFoto.
Dan Taylor posted an album of the surfing action at Jaws on Saturday. How does this photo make you feel?
He also posted an album of the windsurfing action, out of which I picked this one: Zane Schweitzer on an absolute bomb.
6am significant buoy readings and discussion.
South shore
No southerly energy at the buoys, check the Lahaina webcam if interested, for size, conditions and consistency.
North shore
NW101
Waimea
Pauwela
To introduce today's discussion, I'm going to use this paragraph out of this NOAA page (which I check daily, since the departure of Pat Caldwell and I just added at the top of to the GP's meteo website list):
Buoy 51101, located 180 nm NW of Kauai is reporting a significant wave height of 16 feet, which is in line with WAVE Watch III, as of 2 am HST. This swell will be spreading down the main Hawaiian Islands today and tonight, leading to another round of warning level surf to the exposed north and west shores of most islands. The High Surf Warning is in place for the exposed N and W facing shore through 6 am HST Tuesday. Although this NW swell is not as large as the previous one on Saturday, 15 feet compared to 19 feet, it still pose very dangerous conditions to life and property. Translated, we are expecting 30 to 40 foot surf at its peak along the north facing shores of Oahu Molokai, and Maui this afternoon
Below are the graphs of NW 51101 (which I refer to as NW101) and Pauwela together with the Surfline forecast. I put a red arrow to show when the black line (the significant wave height) started to rise again. At 14s it takes 18h from the NW buoys to Maui and that's exactly the delay showed by the graphs. For once, I'm using the significant wave height and not the height of each individual swells because of the nature of this round of energy: lots of periods arriving at the same time, together with some active wind and windswell.
What I consider to be the first proper front of the winter is in fact over the islands. That'll bring rain and NNE winds that will make the conditions on the north shore victory at sea. Surfing will suck, but that's part of winter and I was actually missing this kind of weather a bit. Good to give your body a rest once in a while.
If you're still interested at this point, my home guess for Hookipa this morning is head and a half to double and conditions going from poor to very poor as the onshore wind intensifies.
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.
1 comment:
This blog is awesome. Thanks for sharing this. The waves are looking too dangerous and also beautiful. Read More
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