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 the weekend, the background flow may become light enough to support land and sea breeze development, and showers may increase in some leeward areas.
Issued at 919 AM HST Mon Jun 8 2026
Moderate to breezy trade winds are expected to continue through Monday before gradually weakening heading into midweek. Showers embedded within the tradewind flow are primarily impacting windward and mountain areas, with possible spillover into leeward areas. MVFR conditions are expected within showers while VFR prevails elsewhere.
AIRMET Sierra is in effect for mountain obscurations for N through SE sections of Kauai and Oahu. Expect these conditions to be intermittent through today, and with showers upstream it is possible this AIRMET is expanded to cover other islands.
AIRMET Tango is in effect for mechanical turbulence downwind of the mountains due to breezy trade winds, and this is expected to continue through today.
Issued at 919 AM 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 sitting 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. A Small Craft Advisory (SCA) remains in effect through the afternoon for the typically windy waters around Big Island and Maui. The SCA may need to be extended into early Tuesday, but by Tuesday afternoon trades should be down into the moderate to locally fresh range. 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 south swell. The bulk of the new swell energy was aimed east of Hawaii, which leaves uncertainty in resulting surf heights. Nearshore PacIOOS buoys are measuring a combined swell around 2 feet across a broad spectrum of periods, and offshore NOAA buoy 51002 has shown long-period energy building since last night. Expect south shore surf to rise 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 this evening for Alenuihaha Channel-Big Island Leeward Waters-Big Island Southeast Waters- Maalaea Bay-Pailolo Channel.
