Updated Forecast: World Cup at Sunset and Maui Pro at Honolua Bay
The last event of the Women's CT and of the Men's QS start on the same day next week - Monday the 25th.
With the Women's title to be decided and QS warriors making a last ditch attempt at the Men's CT, each will be a drama-filled contest irrespective of the waves.
Opening day for both events will see an easing northwest groundswell, however Honolua and Sunset have different exposure to the North Pacific so there'll be different sizes on offer.
Honolua Bay is sheltered behind Molokai, which limits size from the northwest, so there'll be minimal size on offer for the Women's. Let's call it around 2-3ft and easing. While Sunset will fare better with easing surf from the 6ft+ range, though with strong E/SE trades.
"Honolua Bay is sheltered behind Molokai, which limits size from the northwest" (Photo WSL)
Tuesday will be smaller again leaving no real surf for the Women, while Sunset looks to drop from 4ft on late Monday to 3-4ft on Tuesday. There'll be a few waves on the point.
A small pulse of NW swell expected on the North Shore for the middle of the week won't get into Maui, with it generated by a storm even more west in position, and weaker too, as the one linked to Sunday/Monday's swell.
E/SE trades should keep Sunset clean with a slight kick in size to 3-5ft Wednesday afternoon, easing off from Thursday as the trades start to relax.
While the outlook for the first three days isn't great, it's better than what's expected from late week.
[Editor's Note: There's been a significant change in the outlook. Please see my comment below TUESDAY, 26 NOV 2019 at 9:40AM]
A very strong and dominating high will setup northwest of Hawaii, right across its prime swell window (see image above). This will deflect any swell-generating storm away from the islands, but surfers looking further afield towards Papua New Guinea, P-Pass, and the Phillipines would notice the super-charged trade swell on offer.
This high will dominate the swell window well into the start of December, with the possibility of a new swell late in the period for both events. The Women's ends a day before Sunset, on Friday the 6th of December.
Unless there's a suitable backup for the Women (possibly Hookipa) they'll be struggling to finish off the event in contestable waves.
We'll update the forecast in the comments below.
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Visit Swellnet's Honolua Bay forecast
Comments
Looks like the paia princess cup is in order.
Maybe finish it off with a ufc cage fight if no swell.......
Tyler is back! Great news.
There's a bit more swell potential for Honolua this weekend and early next week.
As you can see GFS, which our model forecasts are run off have a much stronger and earlier forming low north-northwest of Hawaii (bottom middle-right).
EC is weaker and forming more east, resulting in much less size potential. We'll continue to monitor.
Commentators this morning were saying they expect Sunset to run tomorrow.
Yep both events should start tomorrow (hopefully enough size for Honolua, but marginal).
I don’t mind the Honolua forecast. I put $50 on a Lakey & Italo Quinella at the start of the year, so this can only help my cause. Both surfers looked like no chance a couple months ago, so I’ll just enjoy the ride until the inevitable finals day domination by Medina at Pipe..
$3000 if I get lucky.
Latest update from Craig:
We've got a much more favourable N'ly groundswell on the cards for the Women's event this weekend, with a low forming on the northern edge of the blocking setup due to deepen significantly as it bombs off the Aleutian Islands.
A 'bombing low' is reserved for storms that deepen by more than 24hPa of central pressure within 24 hours, and this low is now forecast to do so.
The low will be just within Hawaii's northern swell window, and will project a slow moving fetch of severe-gale N/NW winds to the south, with storm-force (50kt) core winds more than likely.
A large, long-period N'ly groundswell will result, building later Saturday and peaking through Sunday around the 8ft range on the sets across Honolua Bay, 10ft at Sunset.
The easing trend will be slowed a little owing to the slow moving nature of the low, down from 6ft+ Monday at Honolua (6-8ft Sunset), smaller Tuesday with favourable easterly trades.
There goes my bet
Jinxed it!