Billabong Pro Tahiti Fishy forecast for the Billabong Pro

In: Billabong Pro Tahiti by Ben Matson 47 Comments Fri 20th Aug '10

Tags: Billabong Pro , Teahupoo

It's not the synoptic chart we wanted to see.

The Billabong Pro Teahupoo is the fifth stop on the 2010 Men's ASP World Tour. Arguably it's the most eagerly anticipated event of the tour by webcast viewers; everyone hoping for cavernous ten foot pits and a gladiator battle to the finish.

The first five years delivered incredible waves, seemingly on demand, and Teahupoo's mesmerising pits were streamed live to landlocked cubicles worldwide. It was a professional surfing contest guaranteed to reduce work production in the office for at least four days of the year.

And then the dream tour hiccuped.

Although May is usually a reliable time of the year for South Pacific swells, the Billabong Pro seemed to consistently dial in the wrong coordinates, with perfect waves arriving either side of the waiting period for five consecutive years. Sure, some years saw a day or two of good surf, but it appeared that the South Pacific wasn't quite the swell magnet we'd previously been led to believe.

So when the World Tour schedule underwent somewhat of a re-jig in 2010, a decision was made to move the event deeper into the southern hemisphere winter. This, it was hoped, would ensure the event scored thundering Polynesian perfection.

At first glance, it looked like Twenty-Ten might break the hoodoo. This year's Billabong Pro campaign started off in much the same way as previous years, with pumping waves for the Air Tahiti Nui VonZipper Trials. Six to eight feet on the first day, four to six feet for the finals, and plenty of throaty barrels to go 'round. A second southerly groundswell filled in a few days later (yesterday), offering more juice at the famed reef break.

But from here on, the synoptic charts look terrible. The Southern Ocean storm track is focused into central Australian longitudes at the moment, and we're looking at an extended period of inactivity in the South Pacific swell window.

The best Tahitian swells are generated by successions of low pressure systems that race up along New Zealand's East Coast, directing large south-westerly swells towards the tropics. Such swells take around four or five days to reach Tahiti.

This means that a confident seven day synoptic forecast can essentially look twelve days into the future at Teahupoo. And, at this point in time, all of the available computer forecasts suggest that we'll be lucky to see anything bigger than three feet for the majority of the waiting period.

What does this all mean for the Billabong Pro? I'll leave the competitive analysis for those people more qualified than I. But from a weather perspective, I'd be recommending the Top 44 pack a quad fish or two in their quiver before they fly out.

Swellnet's Steve Shearer will be on site at the Billlabong Pro Teahupoo, covering all of the background stories in 'The Outsider'. And any surf that may show up at Teahupoo.

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