September in Maui is a transition month in my opinion. The summer trade winds get a bit less consistent and we start to see the first hints and advanced scouts of the north shore swells that we all look forward to in autumn, winter and spring.
This past week we’ve already begun seeing these transition signs with lighter than normal onshore wind on the north shore and some small but fun north swell earlier in the week. The wind was too light for me on the north shore early in the week, but if you were an average guy with 6.0 + sails and a big floaty board you could play in the small surf. Even Lowers had some small surf early in the week.
The forecast kept calling for the winds to get lighter and lighter through the week as our trade wind-producing high pressure got weaker and degraded by some upper level troughs. But Maui worked it’s thermal and venturi magic and continued to deliver sailable winds, both in Kihei, where they were stronger, and on the north shore.
Got a report from Matt Pritchard that there was a small window of wind with some fun waves on Wednesday afternoon at Hookipa. The only waves still hanging around yesterday however was a small wind swell. I got a nice surprise session in the early afternoon at Uppers on a 5.3, despite predictions of winds only in the single digits. Gotta love those unexpected sessions.
Today brought an encore of yesterday’s set-up, though with tiny surf, I opted to get work done to try to free up time for next week’s anticipated north swell. According to the National Weather Service’s Hawaiian Surf Forecast, a gale in the north Pacific should generate “upper-end small levels on Monday from 320-330 degrees, peak Monday night, and slowly drop into Wednesday as the direction veers toward 360 degrees.” Now, keep in mind that though they say upper end small, that probably means something like 8 to 10 feet at Hookipa, and I’m guessing head-high at Uppers and a bit smaller at Lowers. Combine that with a probable strengthening of trade winds early next week and we have a recipe for fun!
