I love Franklin

So i'm down here in hatteras getting the full brunt of franklin's swell. Its really been great head high waves with a few overhead sets coming through. I am on dialup internet here so i cant give you a proper forecast, but franklin should begin to head up the coast after looping around down here, so expect waves in the next few days.

Have fun

Tim

I'm away

I will be away for the next week. check the weather channel or www.nhc.noaa.gov for information on TS franklin. You should be able to figure out what the waves will be like from my post below and the information you can obtain from either of those sources.

Hopefully hatteras will be getting it good from franklin.

Have a good week!

Tim

Hurricane? Franklin

Looks like franklin is starting to gain some strength. Recent observations have indicated that Franklin may have attained hurricane status. There are three different scenarios for what franklin will do.

1)
The first scenario is the one that the swell models I use are assuming. That is that the storm is going to be torn apart by a cold front approaching it as we speak. This scenario will result in the storm dying and having a minimal impact on the surf in NJ.

2)
The second scenario, which i think is the more likely one, is that the storm will not be destroyed by the cold front. The front may push the storm to the NE at an accelerated pace, which would produce some surf, but nothing specatuclar this storm is not yet large enough, or strong enough.
3)
There is one more possibility that is probably the best for surf on the east coast in general. The storm could be completely missed by the front moving through, and start meandering aroung in the atlantic coastal areas. Depending on its track it could give NJ some truly quality swell like we saw from Hurricane Danny in 2002. If you don't remember the storm you probably remember the 2 weeks of solid chest to head high swell we saw in early september of that year. We wont be likely to see a swell stick around that long, but a few days of chest to head high surf would not be out of the question towards the end of next week if this scenario is the one that actually happens.

Franklin

Looks like tropical storm franklin is going to be dominating the wave making in the next week. As the storm moves up the coast and intensifies, we should see some moderate background swell coming up. Look for it to hit sometime around sunday.

Sorry this is so quick, I am getting ready to go to Hatteras for the next week so there will be few if any updates next week.

Forecasts for the hurricane are pretty sketchy right now, so i am not going to be able to give a decent forecast right now.

Look for more tomorrow

GO NOW!

looks like the swell I've been talking about has finally arrived. I was surfing chest high sets this morning. Its always great when a swell exceeds all your expectations.

My thinking is this swell should hold some size through the day, and linger into tomorrow morning. During the day tomorrow we are likely to see some fading, but hopefully rideable waves.

Get on it

Fun Longboard session this AM

sorry, meant to post this this morning, but i never hit the send button

PM update:
saw some waist-stomach high waves on my pre sunset surf today, definitely enough push for a shortboard. Looks like the same for the morning, get one it!

Looks like the thigh high waved i was talking about yesterday arrived. There were even some waist high sets coming through. Pretty fun.

Looks like we will see more of these smallish waves through till wednesday, then maybe decreasing in size a bit to the weekend. Not much to look forward to, but you can definitely get wet if you want

Tropics:

Nothing to report

Quick Update

Looks like some tiny swell has started to arrive. I was thinking about taking a longboard down to the beach and trying to catch some small little waves, but the weather is crappy and the tide is a bit too deep.

Look for some thigh high waves tomorrow with South or SE winds. The morning might be your best bet if you can find a place that will handle tiny waves and a high tide, as the winds might kick in a little stronger in the afternoon.

As for the Tropics,

Nothing much to report at the moment, Our tropical wave is rapidly being sheared in to two systems, neither of which are likely to develop, and nothing coming off the coast of africa looks promising.

Still Small

Looks like there is a tiny bump out there today. My neighbor was getting some rides, (he's 8) but i dont think there was enough to push anyone bigger. the East winds are chopping things up a bit also.

Short Term:

The waves that i said probably wouldn't hit us this weekend, arent going to. There is still a small chance that we will see a waist high wave tomorrow, better chances south of the Barneget inlet, but still meager. Monday and tuesday that chance is a little better, but SW winds seldom make swell for us in NJ. The good news is those SW winds will interact with a long period background swell sometime around Wednesday and hopefully give us some good, but small waves for the mid to end of the week.

Tropical:

Emily is out of our swell window unfortunately

There is a tropical wave around 50w 25n that some models are forecasting to intensify into a tropical depression or storm. This feature is the cause of the long period background swell I mentioned in the previous section. The system is fairly larger with a few hundred miles of 25-35 kt winds aimed in our direction. this is likely already making some waves that will reach NJ by midweek.

If this system develops further, I'll let you know.

T

Still no waves

Pretty much unsurfable down here in Seaside Park this AM. A few longboardable dribblers may be coming through, but they looked pretty unappetizing.

SHORT TERM:

The forecast is looking pretty bleak. We have a cold front that should sweep across the region sometime this weekend, likely on sunday. This will bring moderately strong SW winds that will kick up a swell with an almost true south direction. These swells often miss NJ completely even when swell models indicate that they will provide some waves. I think this is one of those cases. Look for waist high waves AT BEST for the weekend. If something changes, i will update the forecast.

TROPICS:

Hurricane Emily is officially out of our swell window. She is extremely unlikely to produce any waves for us. My attention is now focused on two features.

1) A tropical wave off the coast of Africa. This has some potential to develop and if it did would be likely to bring us some waves.

2) There is a large area of clouds off of Cape Hatteras. Some models allow this system to intensify slightly, which could bring us some longer period groundswell which would arrive in the next few days. Nothing large, but some fun small scale summer surf.

More on the tropics tomorrow

The surf didn't come

Despite building wave conditions and NE winds yesterday, the small swell expected to arrive this morning kind of left us hanging. There is a little bump in the water, but its not really surfable.

As for the forecast:
I hesitate to say again that the waves will be picking up tomorrow, because it looks like the same swell I thought would arrive today is still trying to get in. That said, I think we will see rideable waves tomorrow with unfavorable winds. If you can try to hit it early that would be your best shot for light winds.

For the weekend:
We will have a cold front passing some time on saturday or sunday which will kick up winds and waves out of the south. This will be like all the other south swells we have had recently, in that there is a good chance it will miss New Jersey entirely. Long Beach Island is more likely to get waves from a south swell then points north of the Barnegat Inlet.

Tropics:
Emily is on a westward track at the moment and doesn't look to be turning to much to the north any time. She is actually looking to miss the US entirely. This means unless something drastic changes, no waves from Emily. Fortunately, the tropics are still active and we have a few features moving off the coast of africa. I will be watching them closely.

Tim

Bump Tomorrow

Look for a bump in size tomorrow as we will see a small windswell out of the NE. The waves should be in the knee to thigh high range maybe some stomach high standouts. This should stick around until Thursday AM. in the longer range look for a slight bump in size friday into saturday as we will see a frontal passage driving some southerly windswell.

The tropics are really starting to cook. We have had 5 named tropical systems so far. Emily took her name yesterday, and is expected to strengthen to hurricane strength within 36 hours. She is still a week or so away from bringing us any swell if any at all, the current guidance from the national hurricane center suggests that she may head in to the gulf and is likely to not produce much in the way of swell for us. As you know, these tropical storms are hard to forecast, so stay tuned.

BT