Or I could have titled this... Really huge waves coming for a really long time! This is from the NWS surf forecast courtesy of Pat Caldwell...
An extreme winter weather pattern is modelled to unfold this weekend west of the dateline. A low pressure forming near Tokyo is modelled to bomb, meaning central pressure radically dropping, on Sunday as the system tracks to the northeast to about 160°E, 45°N. The pattern is predicted to occlude, meaning the jet stream level winds form a cyclonic, or counter-clockwise, gyre over the surface feature. This causes the upper and lower atmospheric gyres to broaden, the center of the gyre to stall in movement, the central surface pressure to reach a minimum, and surface wind speeds to reach a maximum. This upcoming episode is larger than most winter occlusions, with the net result of a long, wide fetch of surface winds over the 290-310 degree band within the severe gale to hurricane-force range. The strongest winds are expected mid Sunday into early Tuesday with the head of the fetch reaching to about 1500 nm of Hawaii and over a fetch that is north of the Kauai shadow on Oahu. Wide fetches allow less decay in swell height during travel, thus large open ocean swells are expected locally. Forerunners are due Wednesday, with a rapid rise mid day above high surf levels.
Exciting or scary? Maybe both! Plus this should last like forever. Taking a look at next week's weather models (which you can so easily see for yourself here any old time) ...
On Monday you see this...
Already a pretty huge storm out there. Move to Wednesday, you see this...
Still a huge storm and in about the same place. What happens by Friday?
It's still there!! Going all the way to the end of the forecast maps, almost into Sunday next week...
Holy guacamoly! It's like a giant permanent gyre has formed in the north Pacific atmosphere. Isn't that what happened in the apocalyptic movie "The Day After Tomorrow"? Or was that in "2012". Is it 2012 yet? I knew the fact that the sun is going through a period of unusually low sun spot activity was going to bite us in the arse soon. What you didn't know about that?
Ah, but why worry when we will surely have waves, Monster waves that is. Perhaps **Egypt** will break (**a large outer reef beyond Sprecks which has been postulated to have the potential of producing the largest surfable waves on the planet). If so I'm sure Laird will be on it. And then perhaps we can blame Laird for all this.
All this talk about surfing reminds me that I have a few photos from the 21st Annual Justin Roberson surf contest at Hookipa last weekend. Only had time to watch about 30 minutes from the overlook. Still saw some very skilled surfing in that short time...
Finally I'm finding it hard to end a post without at least one sunset photo. I never get tired of these, even though we see this nearly every day...
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