From Bombing Teahupo’o To Massive Wedge: The South Pacific Swell Run Eplained.

Everyone gets excited when they hear about a big south swell. But the South Pacific has the world's largest playing field for storms. Over 30 million square miles of open ocean for the wind to blow to build the swells that turn into surf. And there's a lot that separates these south swells. A lot more than how strong a storm's winds are or how big the seas grow. Factors like storm location, storm track, and ultimately the swell angle and swell period are all vital in determining which spots go XL, which spots pump, and which ones get blown out. In late May, the storm that ended the WSL event at Raglan moved into the Southwest Pacific. From there, it kicked off a remarkable run. A three-week stretch of solid to XXL surf that reached all corners of the Pacific, illustrating just how different each south swell can be. I've been watching the South Pacific for a long time, more than a quarter of a century, and this is one of the better runs I've seen. It's been roughly a three-week run of surf at this point, but you could break it into three acts. The first flurry came from a trio of 30 to 40 foot storms that moved out from underneath New Zealand in quick succession. Tahiti was up first, as a week's worth of top-end paddle surf unloaded at Chopu. And the conditions? Well, they were about as good as it gets. We saw a series of storms that moved from the Southern Ocean below Australia. As those storms pushed into the Southwest Pacific, they really grew in size and strength. We saw 45 to 50 knot winds. We saw seas in the 40 to 45 foot range, and that was aimed, you know, really pretty well at Tahiti. And this was the first in basically a week-long run of perfect surf, right on the edge of paddle and tow. And incredible conditions too, where, you know, it was like multiple days where there wasn't a drop of water out of place. Light wind, it was glassy, it was sunny, and it was absolutely pumping. The brand of swell that we had in May was insane. It was pretty much the best conditions, the best direction, the best period. The first swell was probably 10 feet and 12 feet on the sets, but there's no, like, ways where you couldn't really start by paddling, you know. And then the second swell came, and it was just, wow, just, I remember driving up in the morning with the Tahure, and I just couldn't believe how perfect the waves were. The size of the swell too, you know, it was like, I pretty much spent the whole day on the outside waiting for some tow sets. It's the kind of day where, you know, you can get, like, the ride of your life. This same swell went off on the South Shore as well. It was basically back-to-back-to-back swells. You know, the start of what has been one of the best runs and kickoffs of summer surf that I've seen on the South Shore. The thing that was ideal about these particular storms for Hawai'i and Tahiti is these storms were closer, and then they were also moving towards Tahiti and Hawai'i. When you get a storm that moves towards you, that's a good thing. Larger surf, more consistent surf than if you get a storm that is, you know, maybe brushing past a region. And that happens a lot, especially for Hawai'i. And so that's what happened with this this run of storm. Really big, long, wide fetches, and they took favorable tracks for most of Polynesia. While the Americas were still pulling into barrels, a very different storm was taking shape just off Antarctica. This storm rounded strong high pressure over Polynesia and lifted into the central South Pacific as it intensified. Large area, 50 knot plus winds, built seas over 50 foot, the calling card of a very powerful storm. As we progressed later into May and early June, we started to see high pressure that had been over the Tasman Sea in New Zealand shift further east. That high acted as like an anchor for these next rounds of storms to really start to develop and take off through the central and eastern South Pacific. As those storms shifted further east, they were less pointed at Polynesia, less pointed at Tahiti and Hawai'i, and now they're taking almost direct aim on the Americas. This next storm took an almost perfect track towards the Americas. So the result was a swell that was as big as we've seen in a very long time. You know, if you look at Southern California, it's probably the largest Southern Hemisphere swell that we've seen since at least 2009. You know, we saw buoy readings of around 6 to 7 feet at 18 to 20 seconds, which is a ton of energy. It's as big as pretty much it ever gets out of the Southern Hemisphere. Saw a wave from the street back there and I've never seen a wave from the street back there. How many times you ride the Ford out here? Never. The wedge was like the same audience that was there in the channel at Tahiti on those boats. It was the same vibe on the berm. There was 3,000 people on the beach and I've never seen that in my life. It was an absolute scene. The swell in March, I had a different intention. I was trying to surf as many waves as I could and, you know, make it out of barrels. This intention for the swell was, you know, sit out the back and try to get the biggest wave I've ever ridden out there. Massive waves. I just pulled Nico and Tyler out of the water here. It looks like your hearts are pounding. You're soaked. How do you describe the waves today? It's bombing. It's the biggest I've seen the wedge. I got a couple sick ones. Want to get a couple more. Love the surfer lingo too. And what do you think? What does it take to be in these waters? It takes a lot of hard work. I don't know. It's pretty scary out there. There's some bombs coming through. Yeah, I like how you refer to them as bombs because they're explosive, you guys. The reason that it's going to enhance the surf is because there's less loss of energy on the way. In the case of Southern Hemisphere swells, you know, we're looking at swell that travels thousands of miles to reach Southern California. And so any little thing, whether it's the size of the storm, whether it's how strong it is, whether it's moving directly at you can all impact how large the surf will ultimately be and how consistent the surf will ultimately be. So, you know, in a perfect world, you get a really strong storm that's moving right at you. That's really big. So different spots just light up. So really big surf across Southern California for multiple days. As XL Surf was easing in the Americas, attention shifted back to the far southwest corner of the Pacific, where another 50-foot storm, and possibly the strongest of the run, was taking shape. Third and final act, I suppose, is we're moving back to where things started. We're moving back to the southwest Pacific. We're moving back to the Southern Ocean. And we get just another monster storm. It was really big. It was probably the strongest storm of the bunch with satellite verified seas up over 50 feet and a huge area of seas, you know, around 40 to 45 feet. With all that energy, with those huge seas, you saw really long period energy fill in Tahiti on Thursday. That was the front end of the swell. And the swell direction was really west. There were just some crazy waves on that Thursday where, unless you're towing, I don't think there was much of an entry. And there wasn't a lot of exits, too, on some of those things. And then it actually tracked almost due north, like right past New Zealand and right at Hawaii. That's relatively rare. Most of those storms are moving west to east versus coming up to the north. And so, again, it maximizes that surf potential and maximizes what height surf you can get and also what type of consistency you can get out of a swell. And this was the biggest swell of the bunch for Hawaii. Absolutely pumping, beautiful conditions, probably the best run of surf we've seen, at least to start a South Pacific season in 10 or 11 years, probably going back to 2015 or so. The waves have been firing here on the South Shore. It's pretty cool to see this much swell here. It's pretty rare. But yesterday was firing. I mean, there's some pretty long period and a lot of energy, but a lot of lulls in between the waves. And we're kind of searching around, looking for spots that can kind of handle the bigger period. And it seemed like spots with a little more water on it were handling a lot better. And all in all, it's been really epic to see this type of energy here on the South Shore. And it looks like there's more to come. Stoked. Just little things from each of these storms can make big differences in where the swell is strongest, how consistent it is, how big it is. A somewhat subtle change in track can make all the difference between a good and an all-time swell. Yeah, the interesting thing is during this excellent run of Southern Hemisphere surf, we officially entered El Nino territory. We've been trending that way, and it's no surprise we are there. And El Nino is likely going to continue strengthening through the summer and probably through the fall months as well. Looks like we are on a one-way track to a strong or very strong El Nino event. El Nino events can alter the storm track. And the stronger the event, the more likely to see dramatic changes to the storms and swells. With a strong to potentially super El Nino now taking shape, this explosion of South Pacific swell might just be the beginning. And knowing how much a storm's location and track can matter, we could see many more unique and memorable storms, swells, and surf in the coming months. And not just out of the South Pacific.