Tide was high and our waves we saw this morning are from the remnants of a tropical system.  I overheard someone say this morning, "I can't believe these waves are coming from a tropical storm that disintegrated!"  Well meathead, it didn't just disappear if anything it got bigger and meshed with another smaller system.  A huge wind field was thus created.  Winds weren't tropical storm force but they were blowing in the same direction for miles upon miles.  This is called fetch: the distance wind travels in a specific direction and speed.  The bigger the fetch the better the waves.  Too bad our local winds weren't ideal but it was weird this morning.  As the morning grew later the wind died down to almost nothing by noon time.  It turned out to be a decent surf session.

MikeC

Tropical Storm Maria has provided us with some pretty fun waves.  Unfortunately all of South Carolina has been surfing at the Washout.  It's been totally packed and whats up with all the closeouts?

Photos from yesterday 9/13

See what I mean?


Again


Okay the above are from Tuesday the rest below are from today 9/14 Wednesday


MikeC

I'm pressed for time so this post will be short.  I was expecting a little bigger swell than we got but at least we got waves.  And too bad the winds were terrible in the afternoon during the incoming tides.  Oh well, tropical season isn't over yet.

Here are a few pictures.


I might put up more but I need to go to work. 

MikeC

I surfed from 630a to 6p so I am exhausted.  No words just pictures.  See you out tomorrow.  Should be bigger and clean in the AM.


MikeC

The Katia swell has arrived but conditions are terrible.  The SW wind is completely ridiculous ruining everything.  Tomorrow and Thursday I'll see you out in the water as the wind is expected to calm down and the swell to rise.



For now here are some more images showing the power of water.  Many of the dunes have been destroyed and I've been wondering where all the sand went.  Well now it looks like the Katia swell along with the SW wind has brought a lot of sand back on the beach.  Dunes are still heavily damaged but there's a lot of sand at the base of the remnants now.  If this Katia swell fills in as expected I'm thinking the replenished sand is going to act like a ramp for the waves to ride up over the dunes and retaining walls protecting the houses creating an even bigger mess. 

I'm pretty surprised how quickly they fixed the walk overs.

Just a few days ago this jetty was nearly 4ft tall.

Sand may be back but the tides are still consuming houses and dunes.

See what I mean?  All this extra sand now is going to act like a ramp for the high tides.

The above picture along with the rest below are from the last few houses before you get to Morris Island.

Take this advice:  If you need to build your house on top of telephone polls you are going to get punished by mother nature.

MikeC

The Washout at high tide now. Notice how the city already fixed two of the walkovers in the background.

 A few of you who frequent the blog often I know now live far away from the beach and this is their only way of keeping up with the surf life at Folly.  This is a post to get you up to date on how the beach is doing post Irene swell.  These are only a handful of quick snap shots.  More will come when I have plenty of time to walk the beach.

Folly Beach is hurting right now.  Several of the houses at the Morris Lighthouse side of the island nearly fell into the water due to the Irene swell.  The Washout lived up to it's name and basically washed away only leaving the rock foundations of the dunes.  Every walk over was heavily damaged along with many of the other private walk overs (I believe all three public ones have been fixed now).  Now that the dunes when you first arrive at the Washout are completely gone the high tides flow nearly all the way to the street.

Working on the 3rd one

It's a mess. 

If we get one more big storm swell this year I don't know if we will have any of the Washout or Folly left.  I've never seen so little sand on the beach.  I'm not entirely sure where it all went but it could have possibly flowed south to form some new sandbars.  Maybe a new break is hiding somewhere.

Washout hut got a little remodeling with a new foundation on higher ground.

Katia Swell is Coming

Just be patient.


This computer model image I think does a little better justice than the more user friendly cone projected path.  Forecasters are calling the white path an outlier because for some reason it is not taking into account a departing trough a few days out.  But looks like waves are coming.  Yay!

MikeC

Katia has become a little less organized today due to some dry air and moderate wind shear.  If you look at my wind shear map below you can see the yellow/orange area the blue arrow is pointing to.  That is the shear that is screwing things up right now (notice Katia below).  But you see that area of decreasing shear the white arrow is pointing to?  That's the money spot for intensification.  And the black arrows show the shear moving away to the east which is good.


Intensification is expected after tomorrow.  Expect a near major hurricane by the weekend.

It doesn't look like Katia will be a threat to any land mass except Canada.  This is good because we will most likely get a nice sized long period swell spread over several days.

*This map will update automatically as new updates become available from the NHC*

Let's see what happens over the weekend.

MikeC

sources: wundeground, CMISS