Wednesday, August 6, 2008

Tropical Update - Tropical Depression 09e (likely to become Tropical Storm Hernan)

So we had a new tropical depression (9E) spin up this morning...and so far it is continuing to quickly become more organized. Current NHC forecasts are calling for this depression to become named Tropical Storm Hernan within the next 24 or so hours.

As you can see from the charts this storm is already positioned within the SE portion of the SoCal swell window...though in its current form it isn't much of a wave maker.



TD-9e's current forecast track is showing a WNW movement at about 16 knots which is not that conducive for swell production.




It does look like the storm may take a bit more of a NW-WNW movement angle and slow down just a touch as it intensifies. At this point I am not super impressed with this storm...it is a bit small, moving too fast, and not really intense enough to generate quality surf...about the only thing it does have going for it is that it is already in our swell window...so any improvement it makes will automatically get passed into the swell it kicks out (so no waiting for the storm to actually become unshadowed).

From a surf standpoint, based on today's forecasts, I am expecting a minor...waist-chest high (at best) S-SE swell moving into expose SoCal beaches later on Saturday...and likely peaking on Sunday.

Baja Sur will be better exposed to this swell, particularly on the Pacific Side, and should have waves moving in on Friday and peaking Saturday before fading out...I would plan on waves being in the chest-shoulder high range for the exposed areas down there...with bigger sets as the tropical swell mixes with some southern hemi energy over the weekend.

And finally here is a satellite photo from the NRL...check out the lower level clouds (the darker grey ones)...they are already starting to show the classic "spin" of a tropical system.


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