Update; 6:30 PM Tuesday night, from the 8:00 Am report this morning.
Now the storm has slowed enough to give us back the 8.5 feet at 12 seconds at daybreak. What’s that mean? Friday morning it ought to give us double overhead waves at the pier and at least in Satellite Beach. Plus, the wind models are showing NW at daybreak instead of N or NNW, and the winds have slowed down to the NW in the 30 mph range with some stronger gusts, but at least they’re not in the 40’s. Even at 9 Am we could still see some 5 to 6 foot overhead sets.
Saturday morning, looks like shoulder to head high with strong but reasonable offshore winds around 20 mph out of the west.
If this model could hold, we would have our huge epic day, and a head high epic day on Saturday.
Also, Irene model projections have shifted slightly. As of 5 PM tonight, instead of a direct path toward Wilmington, NC, it appears to be heading for a brush with Cape Hatteras and then toward New York. The storm Friday morning looks like it will be about 230 miles east of us. BUT, YA NEVER KNOW WHAT CAN CHANGE SO KEEP SOME EXTRA BATTERIES, CAN FOOD, CAT OR DOG FOOD AND SOME CANDLES AND A BATTERY FAN AROUND 🙂
Below, is the forecast I gave at 8 AM this morning.
Irene is a Cat 2, 100 mph winds as of early this morning. Pray for the folks at Wilmington, N.C.
Surf; The storm model has moved up its time frame, so the main power and size of the surf will be while we sleep Thursday nite. But for those that felt it would be too big, now it will be perfect for you.
Friday morning, the winds (this is a weak model on winds, but Wednesday night I will have 62.6 to 80% accurate winds for Friday morning once I can use weather.com models) anyhow as it stands the winds turn NNW by 8 Am ish, are still holding in the 35 to 45 mph range, so there’s no reason for dawn patrol except to beat the crowds 🙂
Size, now I’m calling 4 to 5 foot overhead at daybreak, and by NW wind time, after 9 Am anyhow, I believe at the pier it will still be 3 to 4 foot overhead on the sets.
Remember, TS Hannah, which at daybreak until 10 am had some 10 foot overhead sets, it was about 60 miles or 100 miles offshore. (I sat in Marlins and had breakfast so I could see people dropping in and how many bodies could be stacked on their shoulders to establish wave face size. And it was almost 2 bodies, almost triple overhead on the big sets, but not quite.) But Hannah, had 35 NNW winds until noon at least.
My point, is , don’t think the 35 mph plus winds will make it unsurfable. Just bring your heaviest board, and duck your head until you catch that wave, and pounce on the front of your board, and you’ll have a great sesh.
Down south it should be a foot bigger or so.
The cape ought to be great because of the wind direction, N to NW winds until the size really drops after lunch, and then anywhere will be good, south of Minuteman.
The first picture is stormpulse.com’s 6 Am animation of Irene, and the 2nd picture is the projection of where it should be on Friday at 2 Am. The arrow I placed is where we want the storm to be so the winds are offshore.
As the 3rd picture (swell chart from magicseaweed.com or any other model) might show, is we may have some nice waves in the chest high range on Saturday morning also, with 25 mph plus offshore winds.
We’ll give an update later to see how the cane has slowed or sped up.
oldwaverider
Johnson Avenue Surfers 