Hanna A Tropical Storm... With 27-Foot Waves?

"Live, from Buoy #41010, it's Saturday Night!" No, wait, it's Friday morning. So why does Hanna, at supposed Tropical Storm status, have 27-foot waves with it (just off the Florida coast)?

UPDATE: There are some great Comments below. If you have one, chime in (don't press the Submit button more than once, be patient). Here's what the WaveWatch Forecast Model [JessePedia] has to say about the situation. First, it predicted this, at least yesterday, and if I would have paid attention to it, I might have blogged. Here is the overnight's prediction of this morning's waves, which is probably not far off.

LIVE SATELLITE OF "HANNA" (PREMIUM | PRO) | BUOY/SHIP OBS         IKE MODEL TRACK

Second, it sends 15-footers to the Outer Banks. Thirdly, it does not care for Ike's waves, saying this morning's 12-footers will be the maximum, and never pushing anything over 5 feet at the shore (it drops off to nothing after this shot).

Buoy #41009 [Google Map | Live Wave Graph] confirms that #41010 [Google Map | Live Wave Graph] is not out to lunch, reporting 18-foot waves nearby.

To me, this is very impressive, and it's happened in the last 12 hours - this time last night it had 13-footers. In fact, I'm impressed to see a 27-foot wave out of a hurricane - Gustav only made 34-footers at his peak, unless I missed something.

It seems to me that the storm is rapidly increasing its strength, although winds and pressure aren't indicating that, in fact after the latest recon that reported the same winds, the NHC said "ONLY SLIGHT STRENGTHENING IS FORECAST PRIOR TO LANDFALL." We disagree, calling it a Category 1 at landfall, as does AccuWeather.com Professional's Joe Bastardi [BIO] (PRO USERS READ NOW | 30-DAY FREE TRIAL), saying in his blog this morning that Hanna is "playing possum... The wind is there, but it's not showing up yet because [the circulation] is not tight yet. Suppose there is tightening and a 20 mb pressure fall. You may think it's a long shot, but please remember what nature can do. You are looking at 963 mb which is in the Category 3 range on Saffir-Simpson."

The storm has been in the same place for a while with little movement and may have elongated, so that could create a good fetch [WikiPedia], I suppose. It could even have something to do with Ike, although I think he's a little far away yet, according to our map below, though he will make for some interesting beach scenes... because immediately AFTER Hanna passes, Ike's huge waves will be pounding the Southeast coast!

I'm not a hurricane expert so I'm not sure why the unusuallylarge waves are happening, but if I find out any kernels of knowledge from our experts here, I'll let you know.