Marine Weather and Tide Forecast for Waimea, HI

SHORT TERM UPDATE
Issued at 933 AM HST Wed Apr 15 2026

Forecast remains on track with minimal updates needed this morning. Mid and high clouds continue to stream over the islands this morning (especially the western half of the state), with light and intermittent shower activity. Relatively light winds will continue into tomorrow, allowing for daytime sea breezes and overnight land breezes.

PREV DISCUSSION
Looking into the big picture satellite imagery this morning, we see a low pressure system far north of the Hawaiian Islands, along with high and middle clouds drifting across the state associated with divergence under a Sub Tropical Jet stream in the upper levels of the atmosphere. These cloudy skies will linger into early next week with chances for light to moderate showers each day.

The low pressure system currently north of the islands will keep lighter large scale winds in the forecast into Thursday. This means local scale island day time heating will drive onshore sea breezes into all islands, building clouds and brief shower trends over island mountains and interior sections peaking during the afternoon hours.

A passing high pressure system north of the state from Thursday night into Saturday will briefly build in easterly trade winds across the region. Wind speeds will become strong enough to limit sea breezes to terrain sheltered leeward western slopes of each island. Subtle drying trends will develop during this time period due to a slight increase in subsidence, downward vertical motions creating warming and drying effects, making the atmosphere a bit more stable.

However, the return to easterly trade winds will be fleeting and vanish quickly by Sunday as a series of low pressure system develop and slowly track north of the state. These passing lows appear to track far enough north to limit any heavy rainfall or flooding issues for the islands. A weak ridge will settle in over the islands producing a stable southeasterly wind across the region. Any enhanced showers in this wind driven pattern will favor southeast slopes of Maui and the Big Island with modest additional rainfall amounts. Elsewhere rainfall will be limited as the passing cloud bands will move more parallel to island mountains and the Big Island will produce a leeside rain shadow across much of the islands in Maui County.

AVIATION
Issued at 933 AM HST Wed Apr 15 2026

Mostly VFR through Thursday. Midlevel precipitation was moving northeast across the area this morning, but is not expected to create significant MVFR conditions. Generally light southeast winds today will become more easterly overnight and Thursday as trades return.

No AIRMETs in effect, and none are expected.

MARINE
Issued at 933 AM HST Wed Apr 15 2026

Troughing to the west maintains gentle to locally moderate ESE winds through Thursday. The strongest breezes will occur through the typical windy channels surrounding Maui and the Big Island.
Building high pressure then supports moderate to locally fresh trades across the waters into the weekend. A small, short- period, NW swell diminishes into Thursday and remains subdued through the weekend. A small, medium-period, S swell will boost surf along S shores through Friday then lower over the weekend.
Surf along E shores remains below the seasonal average as trades remain light. However, increasing trades by week's end should brings a slight bump to surf. Low pressure advancing S along the W coast of the US next week sends a small, medium period NE swell toward the islands by midweek.

HFO WATCHES/WARNINGS/ADVISORIES
None.