Honolua Bay Surf Season
Hawaii, USA · part of the Honolua Bay spot guide
Honolua is a North Pacific winter wave, full stop — it lights up November through March, and January is the money month. Outside winter it rarely breaks at all, because the warm-season swells come from the wrong direction and the bay sits flat. The engine is the Aleutian and Gulf-of-Alaska storm track, with the last step being the crucial one: the swell must survive the Molokai and Lanai shadow to reach Maui’s northwest corner.
Where the swell comes from
Aleutian and Gulf-of-Alaska storms fetch long-period north-to-northwest groundswell south to Hawaii; what makes Honolua finicky is that the swell must clear the Molokai and Lanai shadow to reach the bay. Cold fronts are often preceded by Kona winds that groom it as the northwest swell fills.
Historic swells at Honolua Bay
The Hot Generation
Honolua became a global name when the new short "vee-bottom" boards were ridden here and filmed for the 1968 movie — enshrining it as a birthplace of high-performance shortboard surfing.
The WSL Maui Pro
The women’s Championship Tour event ran in sparkling five-to-eight-foot surf off back-to-back northwest swells; it was later relocated to Oahu after a fatal shark incident, and Carissa Moore clinched her fourth world title that season.