Breezy trades will gradually weaken to moderate speeds by the latter half of the week. Periodic showers will filter in on the trade wind flow, mainly focusing over windward and mauka areas through midweek. By late this week, the background flow may become light enough to support land and sea breeze development, and showers may increase in some leeward areas.
High pressure north of the islands will continue to sustain moderate to breezy trade winds through tomorrow night. Showers will focus over windward and mountain areas, occasionally making it to leeward areas. Showers coverage will generally be higher during the night time and morning hours. MVFR conditions are expected within showers, while VFR prevails elsewhere.
AIRMET Sierra remains in effect for mountain obscurations for N through SE sections of Kauai, Oahu, and Molokai. These conditions are intermittent, and could continue for most of the night.
AIRMET Tango is in effect for mechanical turbulence downwind of the mountains due to breezy trade winds, and this is expected to continue until midweek.
Issued at 319 PM HST Mon Jun 8 2026
Trade winds will gradually ease through Friday. Currently, fresh to locally strong trade winds are being driven by a 1027 mb high centered far northeast of Hawaii with an associated ridge stretching west about 600 nm north of Kauai. The high will be pushed eastward over the next several days, and its associated ridge will be displaced southward, resulting in the slow decrease in local trades. Based on the latest guidance, the Small Craft Advisory (SCA) for the typically windy waters around Big Island and Maui has been extended into Tuesday afternoon. By late Tuesday, trades should be down into the moderate to locally fresh range, and the SCA will likely be dropped. Trades will fall to gentle to moderate strength by Friday and may hold into the weekend.
A series of southern hemisphere swells will continue through the week with the largest due to arrive this weekend. Currently, a building long-period south swell is overlapping a fading medium- period swell. The bulk of the new swell energy was aimed east of Hawaii, which still leaves some uncertainty in resulting surf heights through Tuesday. Nearshore PacIOOS buoys are measuring a combined swell above 2 feet across a broad spectrum of periods, and long-period energy has been slowly rising this afternoon, which is consistent with trends observed at offshore NOAA buoy 51002. Expect south shore surf to build to around seasonal average tonight and Tuesday, and then decline Wednesday, followed by a smaller pulse of south-southwest swell Thursday and Friday.
A much larger south-southwest swell will arrive Saturday night and Sunday. A storm just southeast of New Zealand is producing a fetch of seas in excess of 40 feet aimed at Hawaii, and there is growing confidence that south shore surf will well exceed High Surf Advisory levels during the peak Sunday into early next week, with High Surf Warning conditions possible. This swell will coincide with the peak monthly tides and will likely lead to significant wave runup and impacts to coastal infrastructure.
Small west-northwest is possible over the next few days, while rough east shore surf slowly declines below seasonal average. Surf along east facing shores will decline further later this week.
Small Craft Advisory until 6 PM HST Tuesday for Alenuihaha Channel-Big Island Leeward Waters-Big Island Southeast Waters- Maalaea Bay-Pailolo Channel.
