Trying to understand the buoys for the North Shore?

Sean Collins explains...

Data corresponds to Wednesday the 18th, Nov 2009

The North swell is showing on multiple buoys, but difficult to see underneath all the big ENE Trade swell. Here are a few images from our LOLA buoy data showing the swell. Obviously not the best swell direction for the contest at Haleiwa, but it's out there and will be building throughout the day.

Here's the 51001 buoy NW of Oahu but no clear isolation of the north swell on the top graphic, but we can see it on the Height vs. Period in the lower graphic of the same buoy. The green line is a south swell and the blue line from 235 @ 17 just a tiny blip from a western typhoon. When we look at the same 51001 buoy through the Height vs. Period view below we can see the increasing energy in the yellow and orange 11-14 second period bands, which is the north swell buried under the trade swell.



On the 51100 buoy North of Oahu, we can see the North swell better. LOLA has separated it out to be about 6 foot at 12 seconds. In the Height vs. Period view below we can also see the increase in swell energy in the 11-17" period bands, similar but stronger than the 51001 buoy father west. That confirms the main body of the swell is father to the east. (Please ignore the "You Are Here" buoy location map on the left as this buoy is located North of Hawaii and not off southern California).



And on our local Waimea Bay buoy off Oahu's North shore, we can clearly see the increasing North swell, at about 4 feet at 11 seconds with the Green line below. And in the bottom Height vs. Period view we see it in the 11-17" yellow and red lines.






Sean...

Curious with figuring out the different swell situations for the Triple Crown?

Below is a tutorial by Sean Collins on a specific swell scenario, given on Thursday, Nov 12th. This info can help you better understand the tools available on Surfline for surf on the North Shore, Oahu.

Surfline Forecast and North Shore LOLA FORECAST Dashboard. Probably the best 7-day overview of the North Shore.

As we know Haleiwa prefers more WNW direction in the swells and you can roll over the swell lines to see more directional information.

As we can see below on the LOLA Forecast Dashboard, OFFSHORE SWELLS view (highlighted in Yellow), the north pulse is dropping fast, strong ENE trades and associated swell will dominate, and the next decent North swell opportunity looks around Tuesday and Wednesday with very strong easterly Trades.




On the same page, if you click on the NEARSHORE & SWELL TRACKING MODELS Tab right above the Dashboard there (highlighted in Yellow below) is a great Nearshore Model that will indicate exactly how much swell will get into what areas of the North Shore, AFTER wrapping through the outer reefs.



Scrolling down on the same page will also provide more Swell and Wind charts, but the Long Range Swell Track model below is a great long range planning tool to see possible swells up to 14 days away. On this model we can also see that Tuesday through Saturday improve for northwest swell on the North Shore. Please keep in mind that the storms expected to generate NW swells more than 4-5 days away still haven't even happened yet so this model output may change depending on the actual storms, but it is a great tool for what to expect in the long term.



And we know the buoys are very important for Hawaii. On the same page just choose the LOLA Buoys tab (highlighted in Yellow below) to review the latest buoy reports. Surfline's LOLA buoy reports are unique in that we actually separate ALL of the swells at the buoy into separate wave trains contrary to the general data you'll find anywhere else. This is obviously very important for us to separate the Easterly trade swell from the possible Northwest swell on the way to the North shore.

On the 51001 buoy below we can see that all the swells currently are from the ENE, along with a very strong NE-070 swell at 14-15 seconds that is generally missing Oahu entirely. Assuming the future storms coming off Japan behave as forecast, by Monday we can use this link to watch for new northwest swell filtering in underneath all the stronger easterly trade swell. The NW swell will show from the different direction and also at a longer swell period of probably around 14-16 seconds, compared to the expected 8-12 second easterly trade swell.

The bottom graphic is an example of our Height vs. Period calculation from the exact same buoy data, which displays all of the wave energy within each period band. This is a very valuable planning tool to watch for new long period forerunners preceding the main body of a new swell. The forerunners will usually be the purple lines in the 20+ second periods - and the stronger and longer period they are, the stronger the following swell will likely be building on the buoy in the next 6-12 hours.



Hopefully these links and descriptions will be some help. We certainly hope that high pressure breaks down soon, and looks like it will in the longer range!

Sean...

How does Surfline determine surf heights and quality ratings? I mean, how do you determine what is "GOOD" and what is "POOR" from various swell types and conditions? And I'm sure it would vary from surfer to surfer.

That is the bottom line isn't it? We used to have long debates about this before we launched Surfline's 976-SURF in 1985. How do we accurately communicate surf heights and conditions for multiple spots along the coast in a single 60 second long pay-per-call recording to a large audience? Should we rate surf heights by the offshore swell heights, the backs of the breaking waves, or by surf face heights? And obviously what might be "GOOD" surf to one person may be "POOR" to another.

To ensure that our Surfline reporters would be consistently accurate, we wrote a Surf Reporter's Manual and developed detailed surf report forms that needed to be filled out for each spot. We also agreed on a few fundamental rules.

SURF HEIGHTS ~ Surf size ratings will always rate FACE HEIGHTS. We will also try to use BODY HEIGHTS as an additional scale because something as simple "4 feet" could still mean different things to different people. To some it would be shoulder high, to others 1-foot overhead, and to the Hawaiians more than 8 feet on the face. But if we say the surf is "4-foot faces at about shoulder high", everyone would truly understand the size of the surf whether they agreed with our terminology or not.

The Surfline Surf Height Scale is below, and also assumes a surfer on a wave would have slightly bent knees.

• 1' = shin high
• 2' = knee high
• 3' = waist high
• 4' = shoulder high
• 5' = head high
• 6' = 1 foot overhead
• 8' = 3'overhead
• 10' = 5' overhead or Double Overhead faces
• 12' = Double Overhead+ faces
• 15' = Triple Overhead faces
• 20' = It's just really big

Here is a great FORECASTER BLOG that goes into a more in depth explanation of our surf height rankings with photos.

SURF QUALITY ~ Ratings will be a mix from all of the variable conditions contributing to the overall surf quality and surfability of the surf for surfers of average ability. These contributing conditions will include wind and ocean surface smoothness quality; the overall wave shape of most of the waves; how the tide is affecting the surf with bumps, rips, and/or currents; and any other factors that might affect the surfability of the waves. We never want to limit the ratings to only one variable condition - such as a very glassy and clean water surface that might be rated GOOD. But if the waves are 1-foot and crumbly, it's really POOR for surfing no matter how clean and GOOD the water surface may be.

Advanced surfers may have higher expectations, so what might be rated GOOD by an average surfer might only be rated FAIR by an advanced surfer. And what might be GOOD to an advanced surfer might actually be POOR for a beginning surfer because the surf might be too big for their ability. But as long as a surfer understands the quality of the surf regardless of their ability we will have accomplished our goal.

The Surfline Surf Quality Scale

• 1 = FLAT: Unsurfable or flat conditions. No surf.
• 2 = VERY POOR: Due to lack of surf, very poor wave shape for surfing, bad surf due to other conditions like wind, tides, or very stormy surf.
• 3 = POOR: Poor surf with some (30%) FAIR waves to ride.
• 4 = POOR to FAIR: Generally poor surf many (50%) FAIR waves to ride.
• 5 = FAIR: Very average surf with most (70%) waves rideable.
• 6 = FAIR to GOOD: Fair surf with some (30%) GOOD waves.
• 7 = GOOD: Generally fair surf with many (50%) GOOD waves.
• 8 = VERY GOOD: Generally good surf with most (70%) GOOD waves.
• 9 = GOOD to EPIC: Very good surf with many (50%) EPIC waves.
• 10 = EPIC: Incredible surf with most (70%) waves being EPIC to ride and generally some of the best surf all year.

Surfers don't usually consider WAVE CONSISTENCY but it's a huge factor that can often make or break a good surf session. As an example, during an observed surf report most of the waves might be in the 2-3 foot range (knee to waist high) with poor to fair shape, but every 15 minutes or so a set of three head high+ waves might come in with great shape. In that case we might give it a 2-3 and FAIR rating but explain in the description that there are some better inconsistent set waves.

Wave consistency and the your personal wave count may vary greatly depending on the spot and the crowd. For a comparison, let's say we have 50 surfers in the water during a 4-foot swell with sets that come in every 5 minutes with 3 waves per set (typical for an average Southern Hemisphere swell). That works out to a total of 36 waves per hour from that swell.

At a wide open beach break like Huntington there might be shifting peaks with a spread out crowd so there would be various opportunities to catch waves up and down the beach. But at a point break like Malibu most waves will be rideable all the way down the point, so generally the best surfers will catch most of the waves and have time to paddle back up the point before the next set arrives. If there are 50 people out at Malibu on a swell like this most people won't get waves to themselves because there simply aren't enough waves.

A very consistent swell would be the same 4-foot swell with sets every 5 minutes, but now there are 10 waves in every set and that translates into 120 waves per hour. If we have those same 50 surfers out at Malibu there should be enough waves for just about everyone. But it's more likely on a swell like this there would be 200 surfers and you know the best surfers will still be hogging all the better waves right? Face it, surfers are greedy souls...

Wave consistency is a very difficult variable to forecast and depends on how far away a surf spot is from the storm that generated the swell, the length and width of the storm fetch, the consistency and duration of the wind velocity in the fetch, and how the local bathymetry offshore will refract the swell into local spots. As we learn more about how to track and analyze storms we'll continue to improve our forecasting of wave consistency.

And who knows? Maybe in 5 years we'll be able to tell you exactly how many waves there will be during each hour at every spot along the coast so you'll really know before you go.

In the meantime, hopefully this blog will help you to understand how Surfline rates the surf so you can use us to score more waves.

See ya out there, Sean...

REEF HAWAIIAN PRO FORECAST, FRIDAY MORNING 11/20/2009

FRIDAY 20th
SWELL/SURF: Leftovers of old North swell slowly fading out as steady ENE tradeswell continues. Haleiwa is weak with 1-2'+ waves (mainly around knee-thigh high with a possible few waist high waves here and there). Other select breaks of the North Shore that favor the North energy as well as the ENE wrap will produce waves in the 2-3'+ range (knee-waist occ chest high). Expect mixed-up surf with strong side-offshore conditions.
WIND/CONDITIONS: Strong ENE trades.

SATURDAY 21st
SWELL/SURF: New/small North swell shows as ENE tradeswell wrap continues. Haleiwa offers mainly 2-3' waves (knee-waist high). Few slightly larger waves are likely at times. Other select North Shore spots that favor the North swell will produce larger sets around 4' (chest-shoulder high). Expect mixed-up surf with strong side-offshore conditions. *New/solid NW groundswell fills in rapidly over Saturday night.
WIND/CONDITIONS: Strong ENE trades.

SUNDAY 22nd
SWELL/SURF: New NW groundswell fills in further and tops out Sunday afternoon/evening. Haleiwa will see well overhead to double overhead+ surf. Other top spots of the North Shore produce occasional triple overhead sets. Select deepwater reefs that focus this swell best will hold occasional larger waves. Breezy side-offshore conditions continue.
WIND/CONDITIONS: Strong ENE trades starting to decrease a notch.

MONDAY 23rd
SWELL/SURF: NW groundswell holds fairly steady with just a slight ease through the day, strongest early. Haleiwa will continue to offer well overhead to double overhead+ surf. Other better exposed reefs produce occasional larger sets up to triple overhead. Cleaner conditions with only moderate to breezy Trades.
WIND/CONDITIONS: Moderate-breezy East-ENE trades.

TUESDAY 24th
SWELL/SURF: NW groundswell holding fairly steady. Haleiwa will continue to offer well overhead to double overhead+ surf. Other better exposed reefs produce occasional larger sets near triple overhead. Fairly clean conditions. *New and possibly bigger NW pulse building over Tuesday night, stay posted.
WIND/CONDITIONS: Moderate-breezy East-ENE trades.


DISCUSSION & LONG RANGE FORECAST
Strong ENE trade winds and steady ENE tradeswell will prevail through the next couple days as a strong area of high pressure hangs over the region, centered north of Hawaii. This HIGH will eventually slide into the eastern North Pacific and weaken a little over Sunday and into next week as a front sweeps through the central NPAC. Therefore, we are expecting the Trades to decrease some during that time and veer a little more from the east. Haleiwa does not see tradeswell very well with only minimal energy wrapping in.

The old North swell (350-360) will slowly fade out over today with small/weak surf on the North Shore. A new pulse of North swell will roll in on Saturday. However, this swell will stay small-scale with only top exposed breaks of the North Shore producing waist occasional chest-shoulder high waves. Haleiwa stays mostly around knee-waist high on sets with a few slightly bigger waves at times. This North swell then fades out going into Sunday.

Looking further out; our main focus shifts to a strong storm that recently developed in the Northwest Pacific up near the Kamchatka Peninsula, which has unleashed a solid NW groundswell (315-325) for Hawaii, due to arrive Sunday and early next week (Nov 22nd-24th). Many spots of the North Shore, as well as Haleiwa, will see well overhead to double overhead+ surf. Top spots produce triple overhead sets as select deepwater reefs that focus this energy best will produce occasional larger waves. *Strongest Sunday afternoon/evening with the peaking swell. Then look for the NW energy to ease a little but hold fairly steady through Mon/Tues. Many breaks of the North Shore will continue to offer well overhead to double overhead+ surf on Mon/Tues as select breaks still push up to triple overhead on the larger sets (especially early Monday). Furthermore, Trades look to ease up a notch or two by then for cleaner surface conditions.

Beyond that; we may see the same storm redevelop a good/strong fetch closer to Hawaii as a short-wave trough merges with it sometime through the weekend over the NW Pacific. Therefore, a reinforcing and potentially larger backup NW shifting NNW groundswell may follow for around Nov 25th-26th. Stay posted for updates as this swell has NOT YET DEVELOPED.


Next update: Saturday morning, November 21st


-Surfline Forecast Team


The image below displays LOLA's forecasted swells with height, period, direction, and trend. The darker blue line on the graph at the right shows the raw, deepwater NW swell lining up for Sunday and early next week! Then the big purple blob on the left shows a new/large NW forecasted to arrive on the 25th-27th.

Dear Surfline, Why did Hurricane Rick suddenly slow down? Wouldn't the El Nino help prevent that? And then it also is predicted to go back inland, why does it not keep going out to sea?
Thank you very much, Jones

Hey Jones,

El Nino warms up the tropical Pacific waters, which usually leads to more and stronger tropical storms/hurricanes there. El Nino doesn't have that much of an effect on how those tropical systems move though. That's mainly controlled by currents in the upper atmosphere. Those upper level winds steer the storms around.

Rick was originally heading to the WNW under the influence of a ridge of high pressure over the Western US. That ridge broke down as an mid/upper level low pressure trough moved through Northern California, setting up an easterly wind flow which caused Rick to curve inland into Mexico.


Thanks for your support of Surfline!

Chris Borg
Surfline Forecaster

Were there any waves in the world this past week?

If you had unlimited funds and unlimited time on your hands, the past week would have been a good one to pick up one of those around the world tickets (or jumping in your G5), and surfing-or watching- a number of surf meccas go off. Here's a look back at the swells making news this past week, and a look forward to those that will make news in the next couple days.

Southern Ocean: Shipstern's Bluff gets Real Scary Just in Time for Halloween

A strong and very large low recently tracked through the south Indian Ocean and under New Zealand. As you can see by the LOLA image this storm was so large it literally took up nearly the entire Southern Ocean between Australia and Antarctica, which is somewhere around 2500 miles! That is one large storm, not to mention the large area of 60kt+ winds near the center. This low sent massive SW swell to Shipsterns Bluff, and one of the freak waves on the planet saw some its biggest surf ever on Sunday, October 18th.




South Pacific: Teahupoo Lights Up

Although it didn't quite live up to it's late season counterpart from a couple years ago, Tahiti did see a solid southwest swell the past Wednesday and Thursday the 14th-15th. Thanks to a broad, intense and long lasting fetch near New Zealand that fired up a little over a week into October, the reef at the end of the road (Teahupoo) bared it's teeth with strong surf and favorable conditions.

This same swell is now affecting the southwest facing breaks of California, Baja, Mexico and Central America. While it isn't nearly as big as what hit Tahiti and the other islands of French Polynesia, we're certainly seeing some fun waves at the right spots.



US West Coast: Northwest and Combo Swells

The North Pacific swell season has fired up relatively early this year, and the middle part of October saw a strong west swell slam California. Because the storm was so close to the Golden State, we picked up some rain (much needed) and initially even some funky wind. But as the swell wound down and high pressure filled in over the region (primarily Southern California) conditions cleaned up and we also benefited from a Southern Hemisphere south swell that filled in, creating peaky bowls at some of the better beachbreaks.

More combo swell is on the way too, with the above mentioned southwest swell lingering for the next few days and a new west-northwest swell building in for the middle to second half of the week.



Southern Baja & Mainland Mexico: Hurricane Rick

One of this year's major signs of our strengthening El Nino took the form of powerful Hurricane Rick off the coast of Mainland Mexico. Fueled by the abnormally warm sea surface temps in the Eastern Pacific, Rick went from a Tropical Storm with wind speeds of 63mph to a major Category 5 hurricane with wind of 180mph in only a matter of 48 hours! He ended up being the second strongest Hurricane on record for the Eastern Pacific.

Rick initially started out on a NW track, then on Monday, the 19th he began to rapidly weaken and take a sharp turn to the NE. Unfortunately, the bad news for California surfers was, with the storm only making it far enough west to just barely get on the edge of the Southern California swell window only a few select spots open to the extreme SE swell direction will pick up a small pulse from Rick over Wed/Thurs. The good news for the lucky few in the right places of Southern Baja and Mainland Mexico is that with Rick's rapid weakening and quick NE track, he now looks to miss making landfall in Southern Baja but not before he sent solid shot of Tropical swell from the early to middle part of this week.




US East Coast: first Nor'easter of the season

After being stuck in a poor, progressive pattern for the first couple of weeks in October, where storm systems rapidly pushed off the East Coast and accelerated towards the North Atlantic, we finally saw a change and the first nor'easter of the 2009 fall/winter season delivered.

Low pressure developed along an old frontal boundary draped over the Gulf Coast States during the middle part of last week. This system pushed off the southeastern US coastline on Thursday and slide over Cape Hatteras on Friday. Rather than rapidly moving northeastward towards the North Atlantic, this system was initially blocked by high pressure over NE Canada that extended over the NW Atlantic.

As this system strengthened on Friday and into Saturday, we saw a large, strong fetch of winds develop on the northern and eastern side of the system with QuikSCAT observations confirming wind speeds in the 50-55kt+ range directed back towards the East Coast. This resulted in a solid shot of swell for many breaks in the Mid Atlantic and Northeast on Friday. However, with gusty N/NNE winds, only a handful of spots handled the combination of swell size (easily overhead+ at the better spots) and winds and Long Island was one of those locations - http://www.surfline.com/surf-news/east-coast-nor-easter_31478/

Florida received a shot of swell with the surf filling in on Sunday. South Florida started slow early but as the tide dropped into the afternoon the surf turned on with plenty of warm, blue water waves blessing the various reefs and sandbars in the region. Some locations in North Florida also really turned on with offshore winds and solid swell to stoke out the surfers there with their first taste of fall/winter weather and waves.



Europe: Bombing NW Swell on the way to the Rip Curl Search Portugal

A very large frontal low has developed and rapidly strengthened to the west of Ireland over the past 48 hours, which promises to bring a macking northwest swell to most of Western Europe for the middle to second half of the week. The timing couldn't be any better for the Rip Curl Search event, held at Peniche, Portugal. While wind conditions won't be ideal and the weather stormy, there should be some pockets of relatively clean surf.



Asia: Typhoon Lupit cranking out swell for China, Taiwan and Beyond

With top maximum sustained winds of 155mph, Typhoon Lupit just missed becoming a Category 5 system as it snaked across the tropical West Pacific this last Sunday, Oct. 18th. Since then Lupit has settled into a ESE course while slowly weakening. At this point it looks like Lupit will run into the north end of the Philippines, (almost exactly where Typhoon Parma hit earlier this month), by this Friday. After that Lupit could strengthen again while tracking across the South China Sea towards China.

Curious about how El Niño will impact the surf in the Atlantic?

The Surfline Forecast team has broken down the details on what you can expect for the upcoming fall/winter season. Check out our feature on this by clicking here.