Teahupo'o Alert Guide

Tahiti, French Polynesia · part of the Teahupo'o spot guide

Teahupo’o is forecast-only — the nearest buoy is thousands of kilometres away in American Samoa — so alerting is a model exercise, and the value is the lead time to travel. The heights below are open-ocean significant heights; the reef amplifies them non-linearly into a much thicker breaking face.

The forecaster's checklist

1. 1.Watch for a deep Southern Ocean low tracking east south of New Zealand, ideally sitting south to southwest of Tahiti with a wide fetch of storm-force SW winds.
2. 2.Give it about four to seven days of lead time; long-period south swell takes days to propagate, and arrival timing is usually accurate to within half a day at a few days out.
3. 3.Run on models — there is no near buoy — using GFS-Wave and ECMWF with Southern Ocean surface charts, watching height, peak period and direction at a Tahiti grid point rather than a single "surf height."
4. 4.Read the non-linear threshold: long period (17–20 s) plus a clean SW angle (200–225°) plus enough size is what tips a perfect hollow day into a stepped-up, Code-Red slab. Direction matters as much as size.
5. 5.Time the biggest sets for a lower-to-mid tide for power and shape — use the tide to time the session, not to decide whether it breaks.

Local winds & tide

Best wind: N through E offshore/side-off for the SSW-facing reef — from 0° to 110° (N–ESE).

Tahitian tidal range is small and the reef works across the tide, but a lower tide sits shallower over the coral and breaks heavier and thicker (and more dangerous). Tide is used to time the heaviest sets, not to decide if it breaks.

Dial it in