THE LATEST IN DEPTH VIDEO PRESENTATION OF HAWAII'S WAVES,WINDS & WEATHER FROM SURF NEWS NETWORK & SPONSORED BY HAWAIIAN SOUTH SHORE

Winds Statewide in a glance ...just go HERE (this link is also the 4th drop down under weather)

May 24, 2013 3:30 AM HST

Marine
The S swell will keep decreasing with surf along S shores remaining below advisory levels during the next several days. The NW swell will gradually diminish through the weekend.

The trades will reach small craft advisory levels over the windier locations near Maui county and the Big Island today. Therefore, a small craft advisory is in effect for those marine zones through Sunday.

Watches/Warnings/Advisories
Small craft advisory until 6 am HST Sunday for the windier waters around Maui county and the Big Island.

Synopsis
Trade winds will strengthen and prevail across the main Hawaiian islands, with periods of locally breezy conditions. Showers will favor windward and mountain areas. The trade wind pattern is expected to prevail through early next week.

Discussion
A broad sfc high pressure system centered far NE of the aloha state will keep trade winds across the main Hawaiian islands during the next several days. Meanwhile, wv satellite imagery shows an upper lvl trough far N of the island chain, which is slowly migrating E and allowing for pressure gradients aloft to become more relaxed. Wind speeds over the Big Island summits are now below advisory levels and should remain so for the rest of the forecast period. Therefore, the wind advisory has been cancelled.

The global models remain in fair agreement, showing the trough aloft migrating into the epac and allowing for upper lvl ridging to build to the n/nw of the islands. At the sfc, the high will continue to expand across the N cpac and bringing stronger trades through the weekend. Locally breezy conditions will begin developing today, and continuing through the rest of the holiday weekend and into early next week.

As the trade wind pattern establishes across the islands, the focus for shower activity will shift to windward and mauka areas. Lingering moisture and daytime heating instability will keep chances for more active trade showers today and tonight

BIG SURF PICTURE Friday 5/24/13

NPAC Into a down phase but the WNW's arent over.

Unseasonal WNW hit 8' this past week from a good storm off Japan about a week ago. Now the ocean surface looks more like Summer with High moving into dominance. There's a couple minor exceptions that we'll keep an eye on over the weekend. The main swell source will be NE from about Sunday in the isolated 1-3' wrap range with fresh and gusty ENE trades.

(See HERE)

SPAC  the 'All Time' SSW is finally fading out this weekend. Word out in the water is that this run of back to back swell (4 pulses total) hasnt occurred since 1984. It's was 8 days of 6' and up (peaks of 10' at select reefs).

Sources: 1. A huge Low with a High over NZL created a long wide fetch about Thursday 9th...2. this giant storm stalled over that weekend of the 11th more to our South allowing for another shot of lasting South swell in the 3-6+' range with 15 seconds.

3.  Another Low has its fetch off to the SE of NZL Monday-Tuesday 5/14 pushing up some solid 3-6+' South by Monday-Tuesday 5/20-21. She was a notch smaller than the 1st pulses.

4. The final shot from this 4 swell series is filling late Tuesday peaking Wednesday-Thursday at 3-6'...

Next: we go into a 'relatively' quite period with background 1-2+' South surf  with 14 seconds (1.5' open ocean) for Memorial Day weekend; this is from more distant zonal storms.

Next: a long fetch of winds are in the Taz by Monday 5/27 and we should see 3' filling around Monday June 3rd lasting through Thursday since the energy went North of NZL (Fiji will be cranking for 5 days but its before the ASP event).

Next: More swell is on the way around late Tuesday 6/4 with higher swell on Thursday 6/6. Sources are a nice NE tracking 30' sea Low hugging NZL's east coast. This well limit sea development. But we still should be some 2-4' SSW out this one filling Wed 6/6. The storm reinvigorates under Tahiti Friday 5/31 and will push up more South angled 5' surf on Friday 6/7.

Last: a broader storm in on the models SE of NZL Friday and hints of a good NE track. If all goes well, we might get 3-5' Saturday-Monday June 8-10.

The best kick off to Summer in ages if alll model fantasy pans out.

East Shores: It's a new pattern. Strong 1028 mb High to out NE fixes out weather and waves. Up to 3' is the trend from the fresh ENE winds and ENE swell from Sunday-Tuesday at least.

Tropics: Nothing.

FETCH: Often called the fetch length, is a term for the length of water or distance over which a given wind direction has blown. Fetch length along with the wind speed (or strength) determines the size of waves produced. The longer the fetch length and the faster the wind speed, the larger and stronger the wave will be and vice versa.
CAPTURED or FOLLOWING FETCH: Not only does the fetch length determine the power and energy of the wave. Additionally, if the winds/fetch are blowing in the same direction as during the wave's or storm's lifetime, the wave will in turn be even stronger. The fetch is related to the orbit of the wave and track of the storm.The longer the wind drags along the sea the more energy the wave will have. This can be seen not just in vertical height measurement but in wave period (the measurement of waves through time).
WAVES PERIOD:Time, in seconds, between the passage of consecutive wave crests past a fixed point. In general the longer the period the bigger the wave. Windswell or 'close interval' swells are under 10 seconds. Big 'ground swells' are 17-20+ seconds (note: a 20+ second swell needs storm force 50+kt winds blowing over a 1500 mile fetch to be fully developed' into 20-25' beasts; these 20 second waves can be felt 1000 feet down!). This is why they jack so much more, pulling large amounts of H2O off the outer reefs.

More generic marine definitions click this link  http://www.prh.noaa.gov/hnl/pages/marinedef.php

....All surf height observations and forecasts are for the full face surf height, from the trough to the crest of the wave.