textproduct: Honolulu

SYNOPSIS

Breezy to locally windy trades will weaken slightly through Monday, then hold at moderate strength through the remainder of the week. Showers will favor windward and mauka areas, with little rainfall over most leeward sections.

DISCUSSION

Satellite and radar trends this morning show scattered showers across windward and mauka locations within the low clouds rinding in on the trades. A surface high centered about 950 miles north of the islands is driving the strong trade wind flow, and mid level ridging northwest of the state is creating stable conditions. Under this environment, winds continue to be accelerated over and downwind of terrain, and the Wind Advisory has been extended through tonight for portions of Big Island and Maui. Even though the atmosphere is stable and PWATs are near to below seasonal averages, trades will continue to focus showers over windward and mauka areas. Aside from a few lingering showers over the Kona slopes of the Big Island limited rainfall is expected arcoss leeward areas. These showers and moderate trades will continue through the middle of next week.

AVIATION

Breezy trades will continue into the day today for most sites. Intermittent shower activity is also possible along mainly windward sites, which may occasionally result in MVFR and even IFR conditions. Otherwise VFR is expected to prevail. Trades are still expected to decrease slightly this weekend.

AIRMET Sierra remains in effect for mountain obscuration for windward Maui and Big Island, with conditions expected to improve by late morning.

AIRMET Tango also remains in effect for low-level turbulence over and downwind of terrain as a result of amplified trades, which is expected to continue into at least Sunday.

MARINE

A strong high pressure ridge will remain north of the Hawaiian Islands maintaining strong to near gale force trade winds into Saturday. The high will begin a weakening trend Saturday then shift northeast of the state during the first half of next week. Strong trade winds will gradually trend down to moderate to locally strong speeds by Tuesday and then hold through the end of next week.

A Small Craft Advisory (SCA) for all Hawaiian Coastal Waters remains in effect through early Sunday morning. The SCA conditions will likely continue for locally windier waters through the first half of next week.

A High Surf Advisory (HSA) for east facing shores has been cancelled. Near shore observations show surf heights have dropped below advisory levels thresholds thus have went ahead and cancelled the HSA. Surf heights are expected to remain just below advisory thresholds through the weekend and trend down next week as trade wind speeds ease locally and upstream.

Surf along north facing shores will remain tiny today. A small, moderate period north-northwest (330 degree) swell will trickle in early Saturday and peak Saturday night, bringing a small boost in surf heights along north and west facing shores through the weekend. A slightly larger northwest swell will fill in Tuesday and peak Wednesday of next week that could bring near to slightly above average summertime surf for north and west facing shores.

A small, long period south swell will continue to fill in tonight, peak Saturday, boosting surf to near to slightly above average. This swell will begin to fade out Sunday. Another similar south swell will slowly fill in Tuesday, peak Wednesday then slowly fade into the second half of next week.

HFO WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES

Wind Advisory until 6 PM HST this evening for Maui Windward West- Maui Leeward West-Kohala-Maui Central Valley North-Maui Central Valley South-South Haleakala-Big Island South-Big Island Southeast-Big Island North.

Small Craft Advisory until 6 AM HST Sunday for all Hawaiian waters-