New buoys to bolster
isle surf reports

The devices will allow forecasters
to fine-tune wave advisories

Conditions fair, south shore waves flat to 1 foot -- the swells might be the same, but the Hawaii surf report you hear every morning is getting an upgrade.

The Coast Guard said yesterday it has placed two new weather buoys off Kauai and Oahu that will give more precise readings on how large waves will be and what island shores they will hit.

For example, the new device 120 miles northwest of Kauai could allow meteorologists to limit a high-surf advisory just to Oahu's North Shore when the older buoy model would have indicated massive waves for both West Oahu and the North Shore.

"It will help us fine-tune our forecasts," said Bob Burke, a meteorologist at the Honolulu office of the National Weather Service.

Residents of the Big Island's west coast will likely find the buoy particularly helpful during the winter.

Forecasters should be able to distinguish between seasonal west-northwest swells, which can send waves crashing onto coastal roads in Kailua-Kona, and northwest swells, which are blocked by the other islands in the archipelago.

The old National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration buoy off Kauai, replaced last Thursday, only measured the height and period of waves, not the direction.

"It's going to give a more accurate picture of what's coming in," said Lt. Ian Brosnan, a spokesman for the Coast Guard cutter Kukui, which placed the machines in the ocean. "It will be nice to know more accurate wave height and wave direction."

Like older models, the new machine will also feed data on sea temperatures, humidity and wind speed.

The Kukui also replaced a buoy about 200 miles southwest of Oahu on Tuesday, although this device does not give data on wave direction.

The buoys also will supply key data that will allow the weather service to provide early hurricane warnings, the Coast Guard said.

The two new buoys are among four weather monitoring devices that NOAA has around the main Hawaiian islands. Buoys even farther away also provide information to meteorologists on the state's surf.