August 28, 2005
MONDAY...small but surfable conditions in the islands. northern shores will see a small pulse in the 2ft range from a small weak low pressure system north of the islands 1000nm out. winds of 30mph maximum will send a small swell in the 7-9sec energy band that has arrived locally producing surf in the 1-2ft range with the ocassional 3 footer. surf along southern shores will continue with chest high surf from a persistent groundswell that affected the islands over he weekend. look for southern shores to drop slightly over the next few days, but never going totally flat. winds will be light and variable for the day creating optimum conditions for the AM with smooth and glassy condition for some serious aggressive south shore charging.
5-DAY OUTLOOK
surf is on the way for southern shores after a month long hiatus that seemed much longer. the south pacific has been exceptionally active over the last week or so. the first in a series of at least three swells arrived over the weekend to the hords of new people that have decided that surfing is their thing. the next swell in the trilogy currently just finished production in the deep southwest pacific. a massive storm formed just southwest of new zealand and moved west to east from the tasman past new zealand into the south pacific southeast of new zealand. as it moved along its course it generated swell all the way from the tasman sea across to the south pacific. maximum seas were deveoped just south of new zealand with open ocean heights reaching 36ft. during its life in the tasman sea the storm sent a swell in the direction of hawaii. as the swell was moving through the tasman sea an eddie pinched off from the mother system and winds blew over the already developed seas adding significant energy to the swell. for hawaii this is good news as the surf will have to negotiate many islands. once the system passed new zealand it intensified and maximum strength was reached with surf generated and aimed primarily at mexico. because the seas reached such large swell heights and wave energy was able to reach extreme periods of 18sec or more, the loss of energy form angular dispersion will be minimized. this is good news for hawaii as these waves will make it to our shorelines with some punch left to them.
look for surf to start arriving locally on wednesday afternoon with surf building into the 2-3ft range with larger sets popping up form nowhere. as mentioned the swell will arrive from two directions as new zealand cut off the supply of surf for a short time. surf will arrive from 210deg as well as 200-205deg. surf arriving from the tasman sea episode will be difficult to guage as there are many islands blocking the way so i'll give moderate surf estimates from this source while the surf generated after passing new zealand should be significantly larger as there was little blockage and the waves were generally larger. by thursday the swell should fill in with surf in the 2-4ft range with 5ft bombs possible.
currently as of this writing there is a swell being generated just south of tahiti that may arrive simultaneously with the swell mentioned above. the source 800nm south-southeast of tahiti. surf may arrive out 165deg on thusday with sets in the 3ft range.
looking ahead there is another possible source of surf for hawaii south-southest of new zealand. this swell would likely arrive somewhere around next wednesday next week. northern shores looking dormant for the forecast period.
Posted by megaprober at August 28, 2005 09:57 PM