Story Updated: 5/12/11

The North Shore of Hawaii has just had its worst November of surf on record. Pat Caldwell, forecaster for the National Weather Service, stated on Friday that there had been no high surf days during November up to that date (the average is seven). Since Friday there has been one high surf day; this being the only such day of the month, breaking the 1994 record of only two high surf days.

With the change of month also comes a change in season, and all eyes are now firmly focussed across the North Pacific for the first real swell of the winter. The weather patterns are currently shifting away from the blocking setup seen through November, with more promising developments starting to take shape towards Japan.

This coming weekend, a very deep and powerful extra-tropical low is forecast to form north-east of Japan's Hokkaido Island (over the Kuril Islands) as cold air drifting down from Siberia collides with a warm pool of tropical air. A broad fetch of storm to near hurricane-force winds will be aimed through Hawaii's north-western swell window for over 24 hours, setting in motion a large and powerful open ocean groundswell.

At this stage the swell is likely to peak around 12-15ft across the North Shore on Friday, with bigger sets on the outer reefs. While a swell of this size isn't uncommon for early December, it's going to arrive during the Pipe Masters' waiting period which starts on Thursday the 8th. Winds permitting, the contest directors might have a tough decision on sending the surfers out especially as there is currently a lot of sand covering the inside reef causing the end section to closeout. All things considered, this is a better scenario than what confronted organisers during the first event of the Triple Crown at Haleiwa where there was very little swell. Update: We can now confirm that a large 12-15ft north-westerly swell is on target to arrive during Thursday in Hawaii, building strongly into the afternoon ahead of a peak early on Friday morning. The deep extra-tropical low pressure system responsible for the swell has formed east of Hokkaido (Japan), producing a storm to hurricane-force fetch of westerly winds. As the swell arrives on the North Shore conditions are expected to be great, with an east-northeast trade-wind blowing perfectly into the pipeline barrel. The only thing holding the competition back is excess sand on the reef, but hopefully this is swept out overnight Thursday.  //CRAIG BROKENSHA