September 07, 2005
9/8
THURSDAY... small waves along southern shores with the persistent lingering south swell we've had over the last few days. the swell should hang in there in the 1-2ft range and keep conditions just above flat. eastern shores will top the list once again as strong and gusty trades both locally and upstream have cmbined to make for a powerful wind swell near the 5ft catagory and also warrenting the issue of a high surf advisary along eastern shorelines. winds will crank to near 30mph on the gusts.
5-DAY OUTLOOK
not much happening locally except the stormy windswell we're currently experiencing. this trend should continue for the next five days and peak out near saturday with windswell pushing 6ft at some locations. the primary culprit responsible for the strong and gusty trades is the large central northeastern pacific high that dominates this area of the ocean well over 60% of the year. when it really fires the trades max out near 35mph here in hawaii. in addition ot the local wave production by the trades there is also an upstream area of tradewinds that helps push the wave heights slightly larger.
going south off of new zealand a new storm is in developement that will produce one of the largest south swells of the year. looking back nearly five days ago this mammoth of a storm began to show on charts and my first thought was that this senerio looks to good to be true. generally storms of this maginitude are never all together optimal for hawaii. either they are in the wrong place, travelling the wrong way or aimed toward the americas. this one is a beauty as it is optimally palced slightly east of new zealand, it is moving northeast and it is expected to produce waves near the 45ft mark. and even better the waves are going to hit that pinnical for well over 24hrs. if this storm goes as planned hawaii will see waves reaching 6ft at select locations and possibly even bigger. so far, thursday the low will deepen rapidly to near 944mb, which is huge in wather terms, and winds will increase to near hurricane strength and remain so for the next 24-36hrs. during this time the storm will move in a northeastward direction over the already roughened waters by the initail winds. this will be the key factor as if the strong winds do move over the newly massive seas the swell will be easily manipulated to greater hights and the swells will build into even longer wave periods, possibly reaching 25sec. waves of this magnitude are the behemoth rouge waves spoken of in years to come. with the rouge waves come lesser loss of energy and greater angular dispersal, basically this means that hawaii is going to get some...regardless. the final key ingredient of the recipe is whether or not the system's main swath of energy stay aimed at hawaii or close to it. at last look the mainl fetch seems to be actually improving with regards to hawaii than it did a week ago. tomorrow ans friday will tell the whole story, but as for now the stage looks set for the possibility genuinely memorable south swell.
late in the forecast period a low pressure system will deepen in the far northwestern pacific. the storm looks favorable for hawaii as it will move southeasward toward the islands briefly before dispersing into the gulf of alasks. before it does a captured fetch will set up and produce a 4-6ft northwest swell due to arrive locally monday into tuesday. this swell will mark the kick off of our north shore season as it should be a genuine northwest swell will sets reaching double-overhead at some spots.
Posted by megaprober at September 7, 2005 11:04 PM