High Surf in Hawaii, November 3 to 5, 2016

Area Forecast Discussion...CORRECTED
National Weather Service Honolulu HI
842 PM HST Wed Nov 2 2016

.SYNOPSIS...
A surface ridge of high pressure north of the islands will
maintain moderate to strong trade winds through the rest of the
week, the weekend, and into early next week. For the most part,
rainfall amounts will be relatively light, favoring the windward
and mountain areas, and be most common during the nights and
mornings.

&&

.DISCUSSION...
The zone forecast was updated for lower POPs for the early
evening period, that is to midnight, for most islands.

After a few days of blustery, gusty trades, the winds eased off
slightly today. But it could be slightly windier Thursday through
friday as a new high of around 1023 mb passes north of the
islands. The trades will become a tad weaker by Saturday night,
and continue through the early part of next week. Relatively
strong mid level ridge is helping out in minimizing the trade
showers which will linger over the islands through the weekend.
The afternoon soundings from LIH and ITO shows a very strong
inversion with low level moisture capped at around 52 hundred
feet. The precipitable water (PW) is low between .8 and 1 inch.
The GFS holds the PW at around 1 inch into Saturday and slightly
lower Sunday.

The remnants of a shallow front band is expected to reach the
northern islands Monday. The band stall and slowly falls apart
across Maui County Monday night through Tuesday night, and the
PW rises to as high as 1.4 inch. We anticipate the shallow moisture
to be trapped over on the windward and mountain areas. Also, the
trades will also turn light in the wake of the as the front's
arrival. This is rather far out in the forecast so we will see.

&&

.AVIATION...
VFR conditions will dominate. A rather strong, dry and stable
trade wind flow will produce only isolated MVFR ceilings over
windward slopes into Thursday.

A strong low level inversion coupled with moderately strong trades
will favor low-level moderate turbulence downwind of mountains.
So AIRMET Tango will stay in place through the night, into Thursday
and beyond.

An area of moderate upper level turbulence over the Big Island is
expected to ease by midnight.

&&

.MARINE...
The north northwest swell has just reached the north shores of
Kauai and Oahu as the Hanalei and Waimea buoys are reporting an
upward spike to around 7 feet and a period of 13 seconds in the
past hour. The two buoys, 51001 and 51101, located a couple of
hundred miles northwest of Kauai, appears to be maxing out at 13
to 14 feet. This is a couple of feet higher than what Wave Watch
3 is indicating. The surf forecast of max 25 feet looks good. We
may word it with locally higher sets with the upcoming morning
surf forecast for Thursday.

A slightly smaller north northwest swell will reinforce this swell
on Friday followed by a gradually lowering over the weekend. An
even larger north northwest swell is expected to build late in the
day Monday.

A Small Craft Advisory (SCA) has been issued to cover all coastal
waters through Friday due to a combination of a large north-
northwest swell and the fresh trade winds. The SCA is likely to
be extended for both winds and or swell for at least some coastal
water zones into the weekend with the next northwest swell and
continuing fresh trades.

&&

.HFO WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES...
High Surf Warning until 6 PM HST Thursday for north and west
shores of Niihau Kauai and Molokai, the north facing shores of
Oahu and Maui.

High Surf Advisory until 6 PM HST Thursday for west facing shores
of Oahu and Maui, and the north facing shores of the Big Island.

Small Craft Advisory until 6 PM HST Friday for all Hawaiian
waters.

&&

Lau