Mākena Surf Report: Wave Height, Swell and Tides

Why the south-facing number is the one that matters

The National Weather Service in Honolulu issues a surf zone forecast about three times a day that breaks Maui surf out by shore aspect: north facing, west facing, south facing and east facing. Mākena faces roughly south-southwest, so the south-facing row is the one that applies, and it can differ from the north-shore number by several feet.

That seasonal pattern is the opposite of the one visitors usually expect. South Maui gets its swell in the northern-hemisphere summer, from storms in the Southern Ocean, and sits sheltered through the winter when the north shore is getting the big surf.

High Surf Advisories for south-facing shores in Hawaiʻi are issued at a 10-foot face-height threshold, which is high. Most days there's no advisory, so treat its absence as normal rather than as reassurance.

The wave model, and the buoy that doesn't help

PacIOOS at the University of Hawaiʻi runs a nearshore wave model for Maui on roughly a 500-metre grid, which is fine enough to resolve how Kahoʻolawe and Molokini shadow south swell before it reaches this coast. That shadowing is the local physics here, and it's the reason island-scale forecasts can be wrong at Mākena specifically.

There is no useful wave buoy for this coast, and it's worth knowing why. The nearest one is off Pāʻia on the north shore, about 27 miles away, reading northeast trade swell on the other side of Haleakalā. Its numbers have nothing to do with Mākena. The buoy that would have been relevant, off southwest Lānaʻi, isn't reporting.

Use the tide station actually called Makena

NOAA has a tide station named Makena, number 1615202, about 1.5 miles up the coast from Big Beach. Almost everything online quotes Kahului instead, which is 18 miles away on the opposite side of the island and runs a noticeably larger tide range with different timing.

For a beach where waves break on a steep sand face, the tide stage is a real input, so the difference is worth caring about. County of Maui's own lifeguard-partnered beach data uses 1615202 for Mākena, which is a reasonable endorsement.

What no forecast can tell you

There is no shore-break product for Big Beach, or for any Hawaiʻi beach, and none of the data above can be turned into one. Shore break depends on the shape of the sand at the waterline, which no model carries.

This is why you won't find a green light on this page. Big Beach recorded 33 spinal injuries between 2009 and 2017, the most of any beach in Hawaiʻi, and those did not all happen on the days that looked dangerous. A low number here is not permission.