Tuesday, December 15, 2015

12 15 15 morning call

Really fun waves all day at Hookipa yesterday. The photo below shows the size.



I completely failed to spot the fetch generating them and I started shooting in the dark and panicing when I saw the buoy readings yesterday. Then I finally figured it out and posted a correction at the end of yesterday's call. Sorry about the confusion.

Today the Pipe contest could be resumed. The graph of the NW buoy doesn't look all that impressive to be honest. And since they showed many times that they don't like to hold it for a morning and just run the afternoon (plus in Hawaii they have to finish by 4), I'm gonna call it off.
(7.45 update: on hold till 11.45am.)

That would be a bummer because today the wind will be perfect and starting tomorrow it will start to get stronger. Also, if they don't run it today, they'll run tomorrow and Thursday and finish on a subsiding swell, which is never the best. But the drama is guaranteed.
Check the dawn patrol at 7.30 and you'll know.

This is the wave face Surfline forecast for Oahu's north shore for those three days. I never check this as I much prefer the offshore swell tab since the wave faces heights will be greatly different depending on the spot and the direction. Plus the offshore swell values are a lot easier to compare with the buoy readings to validate their accuracy.


Here's the graph of the NW and Waimea buoy at 5am. Light blue and green lines respectively.


Pauwela reads:
7.9ft @ 9s from 70° (ENE)
0.9ft @ 20s from 335° (NNW)
so the morning surf in Maui is going to be mostly provided by the windswell. Only in the afternoon there will be noticeable sets from the new swell.

I don't see any sign of that S swell I pointed out a week ago at the Barbers buoy:
2.2ft @ 9s from 268° (W)
1.3ft @ 11s from 227° (SW)
0.9ft @ 3s from 114° (ESE)
0.8ft @ 13s from 191° (SSW)

The wind map shows a weak fetch in the NW corner and a similar strength windswell one. Tons of windswell ahead.

MC2km noon map shows the wind that it shows.

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