South Shore Buoy Data for Saturday, 6am

Stacked plots of Lanai, Barber's and SW buoys:

Lanai (blue line) shows a lot of energy coming in, probably 3x what it was 24 hours ago. This only shows swell energy in the southern cone (160-200 degrees) and with periods greater than 12 secs. My guess is it is overhead where it is not blocked by Kaho'olawe. The fact that the SW buoy is also up means it will continue to pump for a couple of days.

Directional power spectrum for Lanai:

Dominate direction is 190 degrees and dominate period is about 17 secs at the Lanai buoy. Wow.

Have fun!

South Shore Buoy Report for Friday

The stacked time-series of wave energy from the southern cone (160 to 220 degrees) is showing a sharp rise at the SW buoy (green line) but local buoys (Lanai is the blue line) are pulsing in and out of the knee-waist high range. The up/down nature of the data is why I dislike using spot data (a reading at a single time). The buoys are noisy and the southern swells are inconsistent anyway, so I believe the way to look at the data is with the trends they reveal over time. The energy at the SW buoy will take until tonight to fully arrive although some long period forerunners will probably arrive this afternoon.

The spectrum (wave energy vs. period) from the SW buoy at 6am shows a very healthy peak at about 16 sec. from 185 degrees.

One last plot is of new-swell power and. old swell power, over time at the SW buoy. New swell (blue line) is the band from 12-20 secs periods. Old swell (red line) is the band 8-12 sec periods. New swell has been rising rapidly for several hours as of 6am this morning. This weekend should be a good one for the island's west side.

Have fun!

Buoy report for May 9.

North shore buoys:

This is filtered data to only show wave energy with period greater than 8 secs and from the directions 300-340. The dashed black line shows what corresponds to my minimum (waist high). Most of the N shore is nearing that limit but the NW buoy (green line) shows a small up-tick.

South shore buoys:

This plot is filtered to only show southerly directions (160 - 200 degrees). Energy at Lanai and Barber's is decreasing but still above knee high. I think Lanai (blue line) is more reflective of Maui conditions than Barber's is. The Samoa buoy (yellow line) shows a nice peak which may be the projected weekend event - it will take maybe three days to get here. The dashed black line corresponds to about knee-high waves on Maui's west side.

The directional spectrum of Samoa shows 6 feet at 17 secs heading at 175 degrees. The compass line at 175 degrees is the dominant swell direction.The small circles are the maxima in direction for each period band. The spread is likely due to buoy error:

The directional spectrum for Lanai shows pretty minimal energy. Just remnant energy coming from 195 degrees. I would guess knee-waist high on Maui west side.

Have fun!