Possible east coast hurricane this weekend

[niss]

I always thought about doing an "ask me about the weather" thread, as my undergrad degree is in meteorology, but since I never did anything with it other than go to law school, and since college was 20 years ago, I'd probably just embarrass myself.

That background is intended to explain why I subscribe to various weather services and that I have a slight inkling of what I am talking about (but not much).

Anyway, one of the services to which I subscribe -- who is ridiculously accurate about this kind of thing -- is calling for the storm of the GA coast right now to develop into a hurricane, hit around Hatteras by Sunday morning, and track up the east coast to off Long Island. While this service has been talking about this possibility for a while, the models apparently are picking it up now. The European has a pretty significant storm centered off South Jersey on Monday morning, but it brings the thing inland somewhat which could knock the wind down. GFS has the storm far enough offshore to be a miss, but there is a trough heading into the NE at that time and it seems hard to believe that the storm wouldn't hook up with the trough and ride closer to the coast. The Canadian looks like a pretty strong storm (966 mb) hitting NC and then brings the storm right up the coast, but weakens it enough so that it is 987mb when it gets to where it would affect NJ and NY. When it gets over south Jersey it's at 989 with apparently a decent gradient, indicating decent wind speeds still.

The service says that expectations are for a Cat. 2/3 hit but Cat. 4 cannot be ruled out yet. And the models are indicating that this storm could maintain substantial strength all the way to the mouth of the Delaware.

Various hurricane experts have been saying that the cities are overdue for a hit. While this is not a catastrophic forecast by any means, it sounds like up to NYC a storm of tropical storm strength to potentially minimal hurricane strength is possible.

Perhaps someone who's more up on this these days can add to this.

[mmbt0ne]

Man. If that does happen, and the storm runs up the coast, battery companies are gonna make a ton of money.

[Quicksilvre]

[ QUOTE ]
Anyway, one of the services to which I subscribe -- who is ridiculously accurate about this kind of thing -- is calling for the storm of the GA coast right now to develop into a hurricane, hit around Hatteras by Sunday morning, and track up the east coast to off Long Island.

[/ QUOTE ]

That's quite a bit for something that hasn't even been declared a tropical depression yet. May I ask what your source is specifically?

I ask because this is all I get at NHC:

[ QUOTE ]
A NON-TROPICAL AREA OF LOW PRESSURE IS LOCATED ABOUT MIDWAY BETWEEN
BERMUDA AND THE NORTHEAST FLORIDA COAST. THIS SYSTEM IS SLOWLY
BECOMING BETTER ORGANIZED...AND WHILE UPPER-LEVEL WINDS ARE
CURRENTLY ONLY MARGINALLY FAVORABLE IT HAS THE POTENTIAL TO BECOME
A TROPICAL OR SUBTROPICAL CYCLONE OVER THE NEXT COUPLE OF DAYS AS
IT MOVES SLOWLY AND ERRATICALLY.

[/ QUOTE ]

Additionally, it was my impression that computer models often give conflicting information. Here they are, in case anyone else wants to take a look:

Invest 99

[niss]

[ QUOTE ]
That's quite a bit for something that hasn't even been declared a tropical depression yet. May I ask what your source is specifically?

[/ QUOTE ]

The Accuweather professional site.

If you have access to any of the models, you will see that they are pretty much in agreement that a hurricane is going to form and move up the East Coast. The NHC is notoriously slow in this regard, for reasons that are probably obvious (not alarming the public and not having the public disregard warnings should they miss a couple of times).

The thing that I probably haven't conveyed well is that Joe Bastardi at Accuweather has been warning of this happening for more than a week. It's just today that the models are seeing it.

Edit -- I can't post pictures from work. Perhaps when I get home tonight I'll see if I can post some of the pictures from the various models.

[Quicksilvre]

[ QUOTE ]
If you have access to any of the models, you will see that they are pretty much in agreement that a hurricane is going to form and move up the East Coast.

[/ QUOTE ]

LBAR has it going straight off to sea and GFDL has it running parallel to land but not striking. Even those that predict development and landfall have it happening Saturday-Monday.

I mean, I don't want to sound like I'm looking for an argument, because I'm not, but I think it's early yet to worry. I don't want a repeat of Gov. Blanco declaring a state of emergency for Louisiana for a hurricane that made landfall in Mexico, you know?

[niss]

I'm posting this more for interest than worry. There is no reason to worry if you are in the big cities. It's not forecasted to be that kind of storm up here, but it looks like it will at least rival Ernesto of last year, which caused more damage than expected.

I will try to post images from the maps later tonight, assuming anyone other than you and I is interested in this.

[Triumph36]

well uhh i'm supposed to be doing a lot of traveling this weekend (friend's wedding), so this will generate more worry than interest

[Matt24]

[ QUOTE ]
well uhh i'm supposed to be doing a lot of traveling this weekend (friend's wedding), so this will generate more worry than interest

[/ QUOTE ]

I'm heading to the Outer Banks on Friday, guess it could be interesting

[TheJunkyardGod]

Oh man we're having another barbecue this weekend. I hope this misses New Jersey.

[miajag]

I'll be in Ocean City, MD this weekend. [img]/images/graemlins/frown.gif[/img]