Blow Winds! Rage!
Monday 17 March 2014 Look what beastly swell doth slouch to Slaapstad, a massive roiling 20 second behemoth that will cause the stoutest surfing hearts to skip a beat as they slither down five-storey walls some time Wednesday.
The storm as it sat early today, 02h00 Monday 17 March 2014
Blow, winds, and crack your cheeks! rage! blow! You cataracts and hurricanoes, spout Till you have drench'd our steeples, drown'd the cocks! You sulphurous and thought-executing fires, Vaunt-couriers to oak-cleaving thunderbolts, Singe my white head! And thou, all-shaking thunder, Smite flat the thick rotundity o' the world! Crack nature's moulds, an germens spill at once, That make ingrateful man! - William Shakespeare, King Lear
The above storm, lying almost 2,000 nautical miles SW of Cape Town, peaked early today, and a giant swell is pulsing from the epicentre, which goes down to 945 mini bars.
Yes, NINE HUNDRED AND FORTY FIVE hectic pascals of atmospheric low pressure. Winds around the western and northen quadrant of this mega misshappen tempest are blasting right now at insanely violect velocities that would make George Clooney weep like a baby.
The monstrous fury and violent tumult at the heart of the deepsea will sink no matter the skipper like a sinker and the sheer celestrial uproar creates "The tempest in my mind / Doth from my senses take all feeling" (Shakespeare).
The result?
A TWENTY SECOND swell heading our way. By 'our' I mean the SW and sourthern Cape coastline. The swell will spend 2-3 days travel time in the ocean. The swell will lose 60 percent of its height in the first 1000 miles, and will decay a lot slower after that.
In fact, by the time it's breaking on your head at Dungeons on Wednesday evening -- while you frantically endure a two wave hold down (minimum 40 seconds of roiling aerated high pressure pounding tearing you limb from limb kind of darkness) -- the waves breaking 20 feet above your vein-throbbed skull will be in the 25-30 foot range.
Whoop whoop. Winter is coming.
Monday Forecast (look how similar!)
Want to know why and how swell of this energy forms, and basically how it fits into the music of the universe? Come to the Wavescape Swell Course next week Tuesday and Thursday and chill with some surfer brus and brews while exercising your grey matter. Click here