TBT: Chasing Hurricane Earl |

Words Dick “Mez” Meseroll photos by Tom Dugan and Mez

Baron “Bear” Knowlton. Photo : Mez

TBT : A Tale Of Two storm Chases: In the final analysis, and with the exception of an Outer Banks side swipe causing minimal damage, 2010’s Hurricane Earl’s was just about the perfect meteorological everything for both surfers and coastal inhabitant’s. A rather large bodied North Atlantic cyclone generating well overhead waves for many, the systems storm track in was all time. And, just in case you forgot the particulars Earl’s story, here are a few keen observations from the NHC:

Hurricane Earl’s near perfect track as far as wave generating and favorable winds goes .

“Hurricane Earl was a long-lived tropical cyclone that became the fifth named storm of the 2010 Tropical Season. Earl developed from a tropical wave west of the Cape Verde islands on August 25, quickly strengthened to a tropical storm, and then became a hurricane on August 29 near the Lesser Antilles. Earl became a major hurricane on August 30 as it moved past the Leeward Islands. After a temporary weakening trend, the storm quickly reorganized and reached its peak intensity of 145 mph (Category 4) on September 2, coupled with a minimum barometric pressure of 927 mb (27.37 inches/mercury) as it moved east of the Bahamas and well east of Florida. As the storm started to curve more to the north and northeast, it slowly weakened over cooler sea surface temperatures and passed about 85 miles east of Cape Hatteras during the morning of Friday September 3, 2010. Earl then accelerated northeastward making landfall over Nova Scotia as a category one hurricane”. – NHC –

Balaram Stack, central Long Island, NY. Photo : Tom Dugan.

Earl had enough photo potential 16 years ago to send ESM’s Tom Dugan fanging north to his home grounds of Long Island and partner Mez to skeedadle due east to somewhere in the Bahamas a scant 90 miles from the mags Melbourne Beach home office. And they scored, big time, as did the accompanying surfers, Balaram Stack and Baron Knowlton both pictured here with one ( Bal ) setting up for a massive barrel and the other ( Baron ) already plugged in deep AF in one. The fuse has yet to be truly lit so far this for 2026 tropical season but it would be nice to see some storm tracks like 2010’s Earl. – Mez –