First Alert Forecast: Frontal System brings widespread rain, strong winds and big surf.

HONOLULU (HawaiiNewsNow) - FIRST ALERT: An aggressive and fairly vigorous cold front approaches the state from west to east.

The timing of the front: Kauai and O’ahu overnight into early morning, Maui County early morning to midday tomorrow and Hawaii Island will be sometime early afternoon thru Thanksgiving evening. The front will bring about a 6 to 8 hour window for rain ahead of the front (which is called prefrontal moisture), followed by rain right along the front behind the front. Widespread rain will occur where the front is located.The amount of rain highly depends on orographic lifting and how fast the front is moving from west to east. Right now, the front seems it will be coming in at a fairly fast rate so the window of opportunity for rain will likely fall in that 6 hour window or so for the state.

FIRST ALERT: There will be the potentially strong and gusty winds behind the front. This may prompt more wind alerts; models have wind speeds clocking in at steady rates 25 to 35 mph with higher gusts. Some strong downsloping winds - or winds lee of the mountain can clock in above 45 mph.

There will be a significantly large WARNING level swell bringing stormy seas tonight into late Thursday. The wave watch models have been persistent showing lots of energy arriving.... it will be messy with the winds. There could be over-wash issues and large wave run up within near gale force winds along many north-facing shorelines both Thanksgiving and Friday mornings. Latest wave run up forecast from PACIOOS is indicating wave run-up heights exceeding 8 feet and approaching 10 feet. Above 8 feet, overtopping of lower roadways closer to the shore should be expected. Areas exposed to north swells on other shorelines will also experience a significant rise in surf.