This article was originally published in the August 1971 issue of SURFER. Photos of Waimea Bay, above, by Roger Sames.

At 11:30 p.m. on the night of Monday, December 1, 1969, Madeline Valentine awoke to the sounds of screaming sirens. A Sunset Beach fire truck was slowly moving down the road behind her beachfront home. Someone was yelling, "Evacuate! Evacuate!" Rushing outside, she and her husband Val were met by a curtain of water racing over the protective bank in front of their cottage, drenching them both, and breaking several windows in their living room. That night giant waves struck the entire north shore of Oahu. Described as the largest surf to ever hit the Hawaiian Islands, swells estimated between 40 and 50 feet wrought widespread destruction to all exposed coastlines in the island chain.

In spite of high surf warnings issued by the weather service, many beach residents did not evacuate, considering it to be just another big surf—a fairly common occurrence on the northern shores of the Hawaiian Islands during winter months. Miraculously, only two people were killed. A serviceman was drowned when he was swept away while watching the waves from a parking lot at Waimea Bay, while the second person died from a heart attack after assisting in rescue operations.

Caused by two enormous storms in the North Pacific, the great waves pounded the northern shores of the Hawaiian Islands for five days, finally subsiding at midday Friday, December 5.

Eight days earlier, on November 27, 3,500 miles removed from the Hawaiian Islands, gentle winds of what was to become the first of the two great storms began to ruffle the sea. Barely visible on the weather charts, a small low-pressure area over Kamchatka Island off the eastern coast of Siberia was detected at 0400 Hawaiian time. Cold, dry air had blown off the Siberian shield into the far corner of the Northwest Pacific where it had picked up heat and moisture over warm currents flowing northward from Japan. As the small air mass warmed, it began to rise, creating a vacuum or low-pressure zone at the sea surface where gentle winds were pulled inward from all directions. Circling toward the center of the low-pressure area, the winds continued to increase, and within 24 hours (Friday, November 28) were plotted as a major storm. Though still 3,000 miles northwest of Hawaii, the winds had reached speeds of 40 to 50 knots and were beginning to generate the first of the great waves.

Generally, winds blow from areas of high pressure to areas of low pressure, causing air to circulate toward the centers of storms. Were it not for the fact that the earth is rotating, winds would blow in a straight line from the periphery to the center of a storm. However, because the earth IS rotating, the winds are deflected to the right in the northern hemisphere, and to the left in the southern hemisphere. This phenomenon is caused by the conservation of angular momentum. Thus, instead of blowing directly into the center of a storm, winds move counterclockwise (in the northern hemisphere) around it.

During the next 12 hours, the storm moved about 900 miles eastward and connected up with another low-pressure area to the north. This development caused the distance over which the wind was blowing (fetch) in a direction toward Hawaii to more than double, and is one of the primary factors which led to the growth of such fantastically huge surf. The size of any particular swell actually depends on five major factors: wind speed, wind duration, the fetch or distance over which the wind blows, the distance over which waves must travel before reaching their destination, and the winds that are encountered during the journey. As we shall see (especially in the first storm which caused the huge surf on December 2, 1969), all of these factors were nearly optimum with respect to wave generation for the northern shores of the Hawaiian Islands.

Near midday on Saturday, November 29, a picture of the storm taken by a weather satellite (see above) clearly shows the storm front between Midway Island and French Frigate Shoals, swirling northward into the storm center. At 2200, November 29, the center was 1,300 miles northwest of Hawaii, while the front was within 300 miles. In this position, the eastward migration of the storm slowed such that the system was almost stationary. By this time the low-pressure system had become a deep low (960 millibars), and was covering most of the Pacific from north of the Hawaiian Islands all the way to the Aleutian chain. Winds over the southwestern quadrant (the fetch directed at Hawaii) averaged between 40 and 50 knots. Wind speeds of this order are not unusual; however, these winds combined with the extremely long fetch and the fact that the storm remained relatively stationary for more than one day, caused the formation of average seas within the storm of 30 to 40 feet. These waves had only several hundreds of miles to travel before reaching Hawaii, with little or no opposing wind; swell decay, therefore, was minimal.

At 0820, November 30, Sunday morning, the National Weather Service issued a high surf warning. It read as follows:

A heavy surf alert is in effect for the north and west coasts of all the Hawaiian Islands. A storm far to the northwest of the Hawaiian Islands is causing northwesterly winds in that area of more than 50 mph and high seas from the northwest which will reach the Hawaiian Islands as open ocean swell from the northwest of 18–20 feet at Kauai by noon Monday and 15 feet at the Big Island of Hawaii by 10 p.m. Monday evening. This open ocean swell will cause breakers over the reef and surf of 30 to 40 feet along the north and west coasts of all islands.

The National Weather Service continued to update this alert every six hours. The alert remained in effect for six days.

On Monday, December 1, the waves, approaching at a speed of 36 knots, struck the Hawaiian Islands right on time. At midafternoon Monday, 30-foot waves were reported on the north shore of Kauai. Seas sweeping nearly 600 feet inland in some areas washed out many roads and caused widespread destruction.

Earlier that day, observations of the seas were made from an oceanographic floating instrument platform known as FLIP), at a position about 350 nautical miles north of Oahu. Between 1400 and 1500, when the seas were at a peak in that area, the average size of the greatest one-third of the waves was 49 feet. The largest single wave recorded during this period, and which caused serious flooding of the ship, was measured at 85 feet!

On Oahu, the waves arrived soon after dark, reaching their peak sometime near the middle of the night. Although Madeline and Val Valentine chose to stick it out, more than 1,200 residents in the Sunset Beach area evacuated their homes. The residential area along Ke Iki Road was hardest hit. The quote below is taken from a report prepared by the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers describing the devastation caused by the waves along Ke Iki Road:

Practically every home along this street was affected in some way, either by complete destruction or inundation by the surging water. In all, 14 homes were completely demolished, some of which were crushed together when swept more than 100 feet from their foundations. These displaced homes severed utility poles and power lines, and partially blocked the main highway. Other homes floated off their foundations, whirled around, and crashed into nearby homes. Several of these homes completely disappeared with scraps of lumber and appliances scattered everywhere. Eight other homes and about six more cottages had minor to severe damages. Units constructed of hollow concrete tile withstood the wave action; however, windows and doors were crushed, flushing contents and other belongings out the shoreward entrances. At least twelve more homes on lower lots were inundated with water up to six-feet deep. Parked cars were under water and many were smashed against homes or buried underneath the collapsed buildings. Large quantities of sand were washed inland and waterborne debris was scattered throughout the area. Damages, including massive cleanup costs incurred in this area, were about $535,000.

Damage along the rest of the North Shore of Oahu was similar to Ke Iki Road, although less extensive. The two photos here, taken by the Navy, show how the waves appeared at Sunset Beach (top) and Haleiwa (below) from an elevation of 4,000 feet at 8:00 Tuesday morning, December 2, 1969.

The islands of Molokai, Maui, and Hawaii were hit later Monday night and early Tuesday morning (December 2). The worst destruction occurred at Milolii on the Big Island where many residents were forced to leave their homes. Fortunately, an old time resident familiar with the ocean and its sounds, alerted other residents before the biggest waves struck.

Leaving the Hawaiian Islands in their wake, the waves continued south and east across the Pacific. On Thursday morning, December 4, they interrupted my studies at Scripps Institution of Oceanography in La Jolla, California. That day, a handful of surfers rode La Jolla Cove at 15-foot-plus. Later, reports from the southern hemisphere indicated that elsewhere on Thursday, surf up to 20 feet had reached the Gilbert and Ellice Islands. Further south, some 3,000 miles from their origin, 10-foot waves were recorded on the shores of Tahiti.

Long before the first series of high waves reached Tahiti, a second storm began to brew in the Northwestern Pacific. It was first detected on November 30 at 1600 at a position almost 3,000 miles west of the first storm. As it turned out, this storm (although smaller and more rapidly moving than the first) developed winds in excess of 55 knots. This new storm traveled northeastward along a track very similar to the preceding storm, the front actually passing over Oahu early Thursday (December 4) morning. On this morning, surf from the second storm in some areas reached 30 feet. That day at Makaha, a small group of surfers, including Wally Froiseth, Greg Noll, Paul Strauch, Bobby Cloutier, Charley Galento, and Jimmy Blears, attempted to ride some of the largest waves ever ridden. People who were there claimed that Greg Noll caught a 35-foot wave; but to hear Greg tell it, it was more like a 35-foot wave caught Greg Noll!

Surfers in Hawaii are still talking about the great waves of December 1969. I suppose in ten years, they still will be talking about them. I'll still be kicking myself because I wasn't there to see them, while many people on Oahu may still be infuriated because the roads along the north shore were blocked—causing them to miss out too. And so for most of us, the great waves will remain a legend to be described, argued about and imagined over and over again. For those people who did see them, the waves will be a terrifying but awesomely beautiful memory. Madeline Valentine said that was why she didn't evacuate. She didn't want to miss them!

“THE GREAT WAVES OF DECEMBER ’SIXTY-NINE,” BY RICK GRIGG (1971)

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