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Kelly Slater's Pipe Pro Forecast (Video)

Originally posted on SURFER | By August Howell | Last updated Jan 30, 2025 4:16 PM ET

Time to add another untouchable stat to Kelly Slater’s resume: Yesterday, the 52-year-old got his 99th heat win at Pipeline. That’s not simply his 99th time paddling out. That’s nearly 100 moments in the Pipe pressure cooker and coming out well done and victorious.

Since unofficially retiring from the Championship Tour in 2024 after not making the mid-year cut, Kelly still surfed in two events as a wildcard last season: Teahupo’o and Cloudbreak. Even before the year concluded, however, many surf fans believed the GOAT would be a shoo-in for Pipeline, where his house overlooks the famed left.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ZGKJxyPU024

On Wednesday that came to fruition, as Kelly donned the jersey once again and found the best waves in his heat against Italo Ferreira and Sammy Pupo. On the glass after the heat, he gave a blunt and realistic assessment of the weather systems sending waves to the North Shore.

“As everyone knows, we have a really tough forecast this year,” he said in his interview above. “And that’s kind of a bummer. We’re pretty sure it’s not going to be great at any point during the waiting period. That being said, this next storm forming off Japan could surprise us and do a little something different than we think. We could finish this contest in maybe 6-foot Pipe and Backdoor. We’ll see if that happens.”

With a storm expected to bring inclement weather to the North Shore, the WSL called the comp for Thursday and Friday. Kelly’s assessment is in line with Surfline’s official forecast from three days ago — far from ideal, but there may be something to work with. Here’s Surfline’s Kevin Wallis’s analysis for possible run dates:

February 4: “Medium to low end strong surf increasingly likely Feb 3rd-5th, probably strongest the 4th.The long range picture continues to very slowly become more clear, although we're probably still a few days out from calling things medium to higher confidence. Mix of swells from the NNE and WNW are probable the 3rd-5th with a current expected peak around the 4th with potential for widespread overhead surf, potentially up to 2-2.5x overhead. I still don't have much faith in the long range wind forecast but leaning toward NE tradewinds for ok/doable but not good conditions.”

February 10: “Something fun to maybe mid size from the NW in the 9th-11th window. We'll keep an eye on this window for the next pulse of NW swell. It doesn't look all that big based on the current charts but could be pretty fun if we settle back into a tradewind pattern (which looks very possible). There is also a chance for more sizeable NNE swell during roughly the same window. However, this potential swell would come from a cut off low north of the islands. Forecast models tend to really struggle with cut off lows and forecast accuracy decreases as a result.”

At least the WSL will have no trouble with the waves at the next event. Abu Dhabi should be pumping. Will Kelly show up for the pool party, too?

This article first appeared on SURFER and was syndicated with permission.

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