TS Genevieve - total underachiever

I was checking out Genevieve...our only still active tropical storm in the EPAC...and it is still hard to get a read on her.

The National Hurricane Center has increased her intensity but hasn't quite pushed her into actual hurricane strength. At the same time she is showing some good rotation and a well-defined eye-wall on the latest satellite photos. Likely she is teetering on the edge between storm and hurricane.

She has moved into our swell window...but her track is still out west...and she is expected to start to weaken over the next few days. She isn’t the biggest storm either, which doesn't help swell production.

Here check out this sat photo and you can get a better "big-picture" perspective of her size.



Based on timing it looks like we are going to see some tropical swell from Genevieve arrive in SoCal over the weekend. There will be a slight pick-up in SE energy later on Saturday with the bulk of the SE swell (that slowly turns more southerly) arriving on Sunday.

At this point I am not expecting much over chest-shoulder high for the better spots...maybe a few bigger waves at the standouts. It will be in the 10-12 second period range so even the top spots will be sort of gutless and windswelly. Fortunately we will have some more SSW southern hemi swell on tap so we might see a halfway decent cross-up at the combo breaks.

Tropical Storm Genevieve - Looking a little better

I am still not totally sold on TS Genevieve in terms of her being a swell producer but she is starting to improve a little in the current forecast run.

The NHC and the NRL have both slowed down her rate of forward movement to about 6-8 knots which is much better than the 15-knots she was cruising at before. This gives her a little more time to produce waves before moving off the "sea-state" that she has generated.

Unfortunately her track is still very westward, which puts her at an oblique movement path to SoCal which isn't that great. Sort of a trade off between the storm speed and forecast track at this point. Check out the NRL forecast...



One point in her favor is that she is still supposed to strengthen into a Hurricane in the next couple of days...and do it inside of our swell window. If this occurs and we get a little more WNW out of her track I will get a little more excited...as it is I think SoCal is going to see some minor S-SE swell from her...most of which will mix in with a more dominant S swell from the Southern Hemi.

Check back I will have more details on her if she continues to improve.

Oh and here is one more pic from the satellite...which is sort of cool...you can see a lot of the "spin" in the image.

Tropcial Alert - Tropical Storm Genevieve

TS Genevieve formed this morning and is currently positioned about 300+ miles off the Coast of Southern Mainland Mexico. She is moving west at a pretty fast clip...almost 14-15 knots.

She is expected to intensify over the next few days...potentially becoming a hurricane later this week.

Right now forecasts are not really looking that good for swell production. Baja and the Tip will see waves from her but they won't be as good as what we had from Fausto.

Her fast movement, the westward movement track, and lower wind speeds are all going to hamper swell generation.

She is worth keeping an eye on...but at this point I am not expecting a ton of surf from her...particularly for Southern California.