Hawaii North Shore, Micronesia and PNG forecast by Craig Brokensha (issued on Tuesday 27th November)

Best Days: Every day over the coming period

This week and next (Nov 28 - Dec 7)

Hawaii: Well, building surf was seen all day Sunday across the North Shore with pumping Pipe for the afternoon and evening session (below), while today our XXL NW groundswell has filled in proper with maxing waves at Peahi, pumping Honolua Bay and maxed out North Shore surf.

The Waimea Buoy peaked late morning at 20ft (6m) at 18s and has since dropped slightly.

This is an earlier and slightly larger peak than expected across the North Shore, confirming the captured fetch nature of the storm that generated this swell.

Basically from tomorrow it's down, down down with the swell due to still be XL tomorrow morning but easing from 15-18ft early, smaller into the afternoon and back from a more manageable 8ft to possibly 10ft Wednesday morning.

Stronger E/NE trades are expected to kick in, easing off Wednesday and tending light to moderate S/SW into the end of the week as a broad low pushes in from the west-northwest, clipping the islands.

A small weak NW swell is due from this low on Saturday but only to 4-5ft+ or so and being mid-period in nature.

Winds look dicey and possibly lingering onshore from the NW, tending more N/NE and strengthening Sunday as the swell fades and a finger of high pressure moves in.

We've then got a few days of down time before what looks to be a new XL NW groundswell event mid-late week.

A significant low pressure system is forecast to spawn off Japan and south-east of the Kamchatka Peninsula this weekend, with a very broad and near stationary fetch of severe-gale to storm-force W/NW-NW winds with stronger core hurricane-force winds.

The low will stall south of the Aleutian Islands, while slowly weakening resulting in an XL long-period and pro-longed NW groundswell event.

At this stage we should see the swell arrive Wednesday next week, building rapidly to what looks to be 15-18ft+ at this stage, easing slowly from a similar size Thursday and still oversized Friday.

We'll have a closer look at this on Thursday as we get closer to the Pipe waiting period which kicks off on Saturday the 8th.

North Shore Forecast Graph
North Shore WAMs

Micronesia: Amazingly the XXL NW groundswell impacting Hawaii isn't showing well in regards to size across the Micronesia region well at all.

The swell was generated fairly far north and late (east) of Micronesia's swell window, but we should still see some decent size spreading out radially down into the islands.

A late pulse in size is due today, with a peak tomorrow to 4-6ft across exposed north facing reefs, easing back slowly into Thursday and further Friday. This easing trend will be slowed by the initial stages of the low clipping Hawaii, aiming a fetch of strong N'ly winds through our swell window today while east of Japan.

Winds look generally favourable with variable breezes tomorrow and Thursday before trades slowly kick back in from Friday.

Longer term some new N'ly groundswell is due off the stalling low in our far northern swell window, arriving late week, but we'll have another look at this Thursday.

Palikir Pass Forecast Graph
Palikir Pass WAMs

Papua New Guinea: We've still got westerly winds on the coast and this will linger into the end of the week before becoming more variable (though from the north Sunday/Monday).

The N'ly groundswell will be much smaller across PNG and arrive Thursday, building to a very infrequent 2-3ft, holding Friday and easing slowly into the late afternoon and Saturday.

Some small N/NE trade-swell is expected through early next week, while we may see some better groundswell late week and next weekend, but check back here Thursday for more info on this.

Kavieng Forecast Graph
Kavieng WAMs