Tropcial Alert - Hernan...starting to kick a little ass

Our latest tropical system...TS Hernan is looking a bit better than he did yesterday. He is slowing down and becoming more intense and more organized...all of which were issues that I was having with him yesterday. (Really he sort of needed to sack up a little bit with a name like Hernan...)

Current forecasts have Hernan moving WNW (285 degrees) at about 12 knots. His wind speeds are already up into the 55-knot range with gusts hitting about 65-knots which puts him right on the edge of becoming a hurricane. In fact the current forecast model says that he will reach CAT-1 strength sometime in the next 12-15 hours (sometime late Thursday night or early Friday morning)...it also shows that his swell-producing wind radius will grow as he intensifies.



You can see in the satellite that he is already becoming more organized...with the upper level circulation beginning to match the surface level winds.




This is a QuikSCAT pass that caught him as he started to intensify this morning.



And finally here is the current NHC forecast track.




Now that he has started to make some improvements I will go ahead and revise my forecast as well...I still expect the mix of S-SE tropical swell to start showing some very minor energy late on Saturday (mostly after sundown). The swell will continue to build into Sunday and will eventually peak Sunday evening into Monday. At this point I am expecting the decent S facing spots to have chest-shoulder high sets with some bigger waves mixing in.

Standout S facing breaks, particularly breaks that focus tropical swells like those in North Orange County, will be closer to shoulder-head high on sets with a few bigger waves mixing in at times.