September 15, 2010

Igor and Julia

9-16-10 UPDATE
Igor is again intensifying, this morning the storm went through an eyewall replacement cycle, quoted from Jeff Master’s Blog on Wunderground.com “By Saturday, much of the East Coast from northern Florida to Cape Cod Massachusetts can expect waves of 3 – 4 meters (10 – 13 feet), causing dangerous rip currents and significant beach erosion.” The Hurricane Hunters have a flight into the storm scheduled for this afternoon, more accurate information to come. GET AMPED! it’s gonna be firing.
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Today was the second time in history that there have been two active category 4 hurricanes in the North Atlantic simultaneously, Igor and Julia. Julia is also the first ever category 4 hurricane in that part of the Atlantic. The storm is very far out, but she will be backing up Igor’s swell.
It looks as though we’ll get some serious swell energy from Igor, it’s still about 1,500 miles off the southern coast and moving quite slowly. We may even see some forerunner energy in the water by dark tomorrow night(Thursday). I have a feeling that Friday morning could be still be smaller as the swell fills in and by dark it’ll be head high. The swell will be building on Saturday and these days especially it’s pretty dangerous to be in the water, the swell is going to fill in rapidly, and each set will be bigger. Know your limits, if you’re not going to be comfortable surfing in overhead surf, don’t paddle out. Even if it’s smaller in the morning by mid-day it should be pumping and by dark will be full on 6-8ft.
The swell is most likely going to peak on Sunday night into Monday morning and there will leftovers into the middle of the week. That could be delayed up to 24 hours depending on how slowly this storm moves up the coast. Above is a forecast track from Wunderground.com, and the other is a contrast of Southern New Hampshire and Central Maine data, Maine will be the call if the storm stays close (under ~800 miles from the coast) as it picks up that south swell much better.
Keep it locked, I’ll update tomorrow with more on swell period and Hurricane Julia.