Billabong Pipe Masters 2016 Forecast
The last four years, the World Title has come down to the final event on the calender, that being the Billabong Pipe Masters. This year however John John took out the crown in Portugal after putting on an amazing display of progressive aerial surfing.
With this, the forecast for the upcoming waiting period, starting this Thursday and ending on Tuesday the 20th has gone a little AWOL.
After some large early season swells, the North Pacific has quietened down and will remain dormant through most of the waiting period due to an upper level blocking pattern across Hawaii's prime swell window.
This will steer fronts away from Hawaii's prime swell window, and the North Shore will have to rely on distant and smaller swells forming off Japan and Russia. Locally winds will also be dicey as the blocking pattern supports the formation of funky troughs and cut-off lows in the vicinity of Hawaii.
We should see the contest kicking off during the first day of the waiting period, with a moderate sized and inconsistent NW groundswell arriving the day before expected to ease from 4-5ft Thursday morning. Light to moderate southerly winds will create OK conditions most of the day.
Come Friday the swell will be much smaller and very marginal, with no new energy expected until Tuesday next week. This will be in the form of a mid-period N'ly swell, generated by one such cut-off low forming north of Hawaii.
The low will initially be too far west and out of Hawaii's swell window, but a shift to the east is expected early next week with a weak fetch of N/NE winds being aimed towards the North Shore.
The size off this low isn't totally known as yet but we're probably looking a building 4-5ft surf, but with average south-west winds.
Late week another broader and stronger cut-off low is forecast to form west-northwest of the islands mid-late next week and this may produce a westerly swell for Friday although with no major size.
Longer term the blocking pattern looks to persist through the end of the waiting period, with a forecast typhoon forming off the Philippines due to be absorbed into the storm track but race away quickly towards the Aleutian Islands.
We'll provide running updates regarding the outlook in the comments below.
Comments
Ordinary looking forecast...almost glad now the title isn't on the line...
WSL must be praying for a better year of waves in 2017...
This forecast probably explains why the WSL site still has no forecast up.
That's how they've been all year....if it's a good forecast it's up early...bad forecast - nothing...
I'm sure they think it's beneficial to either create hype or avoid disinterest...but their core audience just see it as more corporate PR bullshit...
Anyone know if these blocking patterns are associated with the current, albeit weakening, La Nina?
Well during La Nina we see the storm track further north and not as close to Hawaii, so this could be a factor, but also maybe just a bad month of waves.
All Brazillian final.
Gabs to just get the nod over Toledo with a small head dip to air-revese that he sticks in the dying seconds.
You heard it here first Swellnetonians.
Major prediction : Jon Jon even if it's small.
On a roll.
The victory lap.
Minor prediction : Gabs gets slapped by a large Hawaiian after Medina runs him down in the surf like a dog on the street in order to make an average section during a freesurf.
I'll bet on zenagain's prediction, while quietly hoping for blowin's minor prediction.
Been looking forward to this one, it will be a large disappointment to see it surfed in small waves.
BTW, is that 4-5 foot real, or 4-5 foot 'Hawaiian'. Seems to me that waves are tending to be called the same size either way these days, seen and heard them call waves "X feet Hawaiian' when I'm thinking, yep, that's also 'X feet Sydney too'.
There was the WSL headline saying 'Under 20s charge 20 foot sunset' or something like that……..article goes onto talk about 20 foot faces, it was 6-8 foot Hawaiian / Australian / Whateveran
I've seen that too staitey. Calling 6' waves in Hawaii for waves that would get called 3' in Sydney. I give up! :-)
WSl seem to be trending towards the 'biggest' number, as it looks the most impressive for mainstream news outlets. Hence 8ft Sunset being called 18ft.
Exhibit A: WSL press release last Saturday: "VANS WORLD CUP ON FOR DAY 2 OF ACTION".
Location: Sunset Beach, North Shore, Oahu
Window: November 24 - December 6
Today's Call: Round two ON, 8am HST start
Conditions: 8-10ft. NW swell
NORTH SHORE, Oahu/Hawaii – (Friday, December 2, 2016) -- The Vans World Cup of Surfing, the second event of the Vans Triple Crown, will resume today as a solid NW swell peaks on the North Shore of Oahu and provides 18-foot surf.
And the photo accompanying the press release (captioned "Clean easterly offshore winds groom the lineup at Sunset Beach. Image: WSL / Chlala")
Hmmm seems like a bit of an American / WSL thing to overhype everything. Like mentioned earlier, the pipe press releases haven't even mentioned swell.
Any regular surfer from our part of the world looking at that picture above would recognise surf in the 8 foot + range I'd say, probably not 18 feet
But after Gabbys bashing Charlie mouths off to Kala alexander and is left on the sand out cold and toothless
Merry Xmas
Craig , what is the direction of the second swell. Pipe doesn't even break in a n/ ne swell,
There is still probably too much sand right now also. With no real large swells to clean out all the sand off the reef.
Gums masters/ Backdoor masters.
It's an amazing thing to witness a giant swell hit from the n/e and pipe, well does not even break .
Yeah north, so a Backdoor swell if winds co-operate.
And Batfink, Aus/Hawaii size calls are about the same.
Kona winds....wow.
The first WSL press release for Pipe was issued today, and (for the first time in ages) there is no discussion about the upcoming surf conditions.
LOL
Gary has mastery of Pipe, Backdoor, and Gums.
And V-land Gaz?
Gary loves a bit of V-Land, but is careful not to get caught down there with a camera.
Thought a Go-Pro might be the go, for the pro.... Gaz?
Irresistible Gary promo..... "Foot-age of the big fella at V-Land"
That sucks, they should make pipe an air free event, no scores given for airs, to encourage power surfing when there is no barrels.
MSW- Frederico may not surf at pipe..?
I hope Frederico Morais does surf Pipe. Ross W and Peter Mel insisted that he would, but now I can't seem to find any conclusive info.
Also have my fingers firmly crossed for Bede Durbidge; how brave of him to make his comeback at Pipe. All the best to a good human.
Delete if not appropriate (other surf forecast site) but this is a real interesting read https://www.surfline.com/surf-news/the-pipe-masters-is-almost-here-and-t…
Forecast is up on WSL site
For Thursday they have 4-5ft occ 6ft faces, which is 2-3ft.
But in the write-up they have "head high to slightly overhead range".
That doesn't seem inconsistent with the Surfline Wave Height Scale.
1'= ankle-shin high
2'= knee-thigh high
3'= waist-belly high
4'= chest-shoulder high
5'= head high
6'= 1 foot overhead
8'= 3' overhead
10'=5' overhead or Double Overhead faces
12'= Double Overhead+ faces
Yeah I guess not too far off looking at that.
So the question is whether it'll be head high plus (Surfline), or a couple of feet overhead (Swellnet) tomorrow. There's a bit of a difference - head high ain't much of a spectacle at Pipe, but if it's a foot or two overhead then there could be some options (sand pending, obviously).
Given the extended poor outlook, I wonder if they'll relocate up or down the beach?
Surely they wont relocate for the pipe masters? Has that ever been done?
Imagine if they had to move it because it was too small? No chance of a waiting period extension?
I think the year Bede won it, the trials and the early rounds were in pretty good surf but finals day it was barely head high. Didn't exactly make for gripping viewing.
The long-range outlook is looking a little better, so lets hope we see some larger swell at the end of the period.
Also Tuesday's N'ly swell has been downgraded a touch and shifted to Wednesday, but an inconsistent long-period NW swell is due Tuesday to 3-5ft. Gusty NE winds will create a few issues though.
looks like Freddies in according to msw....
https://magicseaweed.com/news/pipe-preview-frederico-morais-and-bruce-ir…
Latest forecast update here: https://swllnt.com/2gTOHXC