Hurricane Bill: Big and growing

FOLLY BEACH-- Overhead. That's how high the waves are expected to be at the Washout, starting tonight.

They already were climbing Thursday. Surf watchers say waves might rise as high as 11 feet when they peak sometime Saturday.

"Bad rip, but anybody who's going to be out there is going to be pretty experienced," said local surfer Nancy Hussey. With Hurricane Bill a few hundred miles to the east, this weekend is "not your best beach days," said meteorologist Jon Jelsema of the National Weather Service in Charleston.

The weather service on Thursday began warning of a higher risk of rip currents this weekend. The currents are narrow channels of water that will pull ocean swimmers out from the beach. They claim more than 100 lives in the United States each year. Strong rip currents and rough seas earlier this summer contributed to a rash of drownings and swimmer rescues.

Charleston County Park and Recreation Commission lifeguards will be alert for rip currents at the three beach parks, said Michael Bradley, assistant beach parks manager. "If the waves are too rough, the currents too strong, we may close down our beaches," he said.

Bill is the first hurricane of the Atlantic season. The Category 3 storm was dumping 17-foot waves on Leeward Islands beaches early in the day as it began pushing bigger surf onto Folly Beach some 1,400 miles away. It's expected to return to a Category 4 storm with winds of more than 130 mph when it passes some 600 miles to the east of the Lowcountry on Saturday morning.

That won't be close enough to affect the weather, not that it matters much. A weather front moving in from the west is expected to bring showers and thunderstorms Saturday, along with brisk 15 mph winds, Jelsema said. As the worst of those waves wash at the dunes, the west wind will be knocking them down, hopefully preventing too much erosion.

"If Bill moves quickly and stays far offshore as predicted, our beaches will fare better. That said, we will likely see some mild to moderate erosion in some areas, particularly in areas with minimal dry-sand beach during normal tides," said Dan Burger, communications director of the S.C. Office of Ocean and Coastal Resource Management.

The bigger, longer waves pushed by the storm will create strong pulls in the waters around the beaches.

"It's a much more powerful wave as opposed to a wind-driven wave," Jelsema said. "It's going to be a different type of wave, too. It's going to be a lot cleaner. This is the type of wave surfers really enjoy."

"Oh, yeah," said Rick Anson, of James Island, the 2008 Grand Master's champion on the East Coast for the Eastern Surfing Association, who spent three hours in the water Thursday at the Washout, the surfing mecca on the island's east end. The beach was as packed with people as it would be on a busy Saturday, even though conditions were a little "crunchy," and the currents were kicking around enough to get people hurt if they didn't know what they were doing.

While Anson was out there, the waves rose from waist- to head-high.

"The main waves aren't here yet and everybody's dying to get out," Anson said. "You hate to hear 'You missed it. You should have been here yesterday.' "

Reach Bo Petersen at 937-5744 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.