A high pressure ridge over the Hawaiian Islands today ahead of an approaching weak cold front will keep light and variable winds across the region today. Sea breezes will develop over all islands today, briefly turning into easterly trade winds on Monday as the cold front stalls out near Kauai. Expect increasing shower trends for the northwest islands from Sunday night through Monday as the stalled front dissipates. The ridge will build in over the island chain producing drying trends from Tuesday into Wednesday. Another weak cold front stalls out near Kauai with the next round of increasing clouds and shower trends from Thursday into Friday.
Vfr conditions will prevail through much of the next 24 hours. Light and variable winds will support the development of diurnal land breezes overnight and sea breezes during the afternoon. The background flow will remain out of the south to southeast today, then gradually shift out of the north by early Monday as a weakening frontal boundary approaches from the north. Rainfall chances will increase as the front settles southward into the area, with the best potential for showers focused over northern and windward-facing slopes of Kauai and Oahu late tonight into Monday. These showers could result in brief periods of MVFR ceilings and visibility. Therefore, an AIRMET Sierra for mountain obscuration may be needed late tonight into Monday for these areas.
Light winds will prevail across the island chain today ahead of a front that is approaching the region from the northwest. Within this light wind regime, nearshore sea breezes will commence during the day, with land breezes resuming at night. Trades briefly return on Monday followed by another around of light and variable background winds throughout much of the rest of this week.
Buoy observations from Hanalei and Waimea show that a new small, long period northwest swell arrived and peaked overnight into early this morning. This swell, which resulted in an overnight bump in surf along north and west facing shores, will gradually decline today. The next, slightly larger, medium period northwest swell will begin arriving into the islands on Monday, continuing to build Monday night. This will be quickly followed by a moderate, long period north northwest swell Tuesday that will peak Tuesday night, then decline through Wednesday. The most impactful swell for surf along north and west facing shores over the next few days will be late in the week when a large, medium period northwest swell arrives in the islands. This late week swell is forecast to peak near the High Surf Warning thresholds for north and west facing shores.
Surf along E shores will remain small over the next few days due to a lack of trades. Surf along south facing shores will see a small boost from a tiny, long period energy poised to arrive tonight and continuing through at least the first half of the week.
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