Monday, November 24, 2014

11 24 14 morning call

4am main swell buoy readings:

waimea:
7.0ft @ 13s from 328° (NW)
1.2ft @ 3s from 266° (W)

Maui north shore (indicative of what's in the water on Maui's north shore)
4.9ft @ 10s from 71° (ENE)           
5ft @ 14s from 328° (NW)

West lanai Maui north shore (indicative of what's in the water on Maui's south shore)
2.3ft @ 13s from 293° (WNW)
1.6ft @ 4s from 232° (WSW)
1.3ft @ 5s from 208° (SSW)
 

 
1.1ft @ 6s from 201° (SSW)

The Waimea buoy went up to 7f this am and the Maui one is still at "only" 5f.
You might guess that it's gonna get a bit bigger here in Maui too, but this swell is a bit weird, I wouldn't be 100% sure about that.
But there's waves and they're gonna be veeery clean thanks to the morning light Kona wind.
As soon as the wind will turn north after the pass of the weak front you see in the satellite picture below, it will go from heaven to hell.
The photo is from 5am and the leading edge of the front is hitting the Oahu north shore. There will be some moderate rain that comes with it too.


 
 
The switch of the wind can be appreciated in the following map that shows SW wind on Maui and the ugly north wind right behind the front.




So what time is the wind going to switch exactly, I hear everybody saying...
Well, the best tool for that is the maui county @ km map, but as I write it's not updated yet to this morning, so I'm going to post a snip from Windguru.
Two words about the most popular wind forecast website between windsurfers and kitesurfers.
First, Windguru does not do any forecast. Like many other websites, it only presents data that is available to everyone in a very easy to read way.
The mathematical model that actually does the forecast presented in the table at the top of the page (the one that everybody checks) is called GFS.
Not many people know that if you go all the way down, there's two other forecasts by two other models, NAM and HRW. Those two are detailed hour by hour and both indicate that the wind should start turning west around 10 and north around 1pm. They don't indicate that today I start working at 2pm, but I do want to mention that because I love when my schedule fits right in with the forecast...




They didn't run the Honolua Bay contest (even though I believe there were sets at sunset) and they most definitely won't run it today. Honolua hates the Kona and I believe the north wind sucks pretty bad too.
They might start it tomorrow though. There will be a bump in the NW swell (8f 12s by surfline) and the wind should be NE enough to be ok there. Not the classic groomed offshore conditions with the regular ENE trades though, but better than nothing.


Have fun in the sun everyone and no pain no gain in the rain!

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