Irene update - Thursday night
My thoughts on Irene...
This is a very dangerous storm. I am still maintaining my thoughts that Irene will hit Cat. 4 status on Friday as she moves into completely open waters off the coast of Georgia that are in excess of 90 degrees. Water this warm will not only sustain Irene, but allow her to strengthen. Currently, she's a Cat. 3 storm and has been maintaining this strength for quite some time now. There won't be any problem for her to move up another level on the Saffir-Simpson scale tomorrow.
Then on Saturday the fun and games begin. Because Irene is moving due north, she will run parallel to the coast. The problem with this is that we'll see a lot of water flowing in directions that coastal residents are not used to. This storm, because of it's trajectory, is going to create an enormous flooding problem for millions of people. The wind will be destructive, sure. But the water is going to be the biggest problem. We've seen other hurricanes before move into New England and cause mass destruction, but they were not as powerful as Irene is capable of being. If the current model data on this storm comes true, you're going to see the biggest natural disaster in the mid-Atlantic coast and New England than we've seen in our lifetimes. I urge anyone on the east coast to take evacuation orders seriously and please leave. If you have family on the coast or near the coast, please try to convince them to leave. You don't want to be anywhere near the east coast this weekend, and you don't want to wait until Friday night to try and leave either because the interstates will be jammed.
The ocean waters cool off drastically as you head north toward New York City, so it is likely that Irene will lose power quickly on Sunday, but the damage will still be done. Right now all we can do is pray that the model data is incorrect and some wild, unexpected change in track occurs with this storm.
In Kentucky, the hurricane is going to bring northerly winds to us this weekend. We'll be in that area of subsidence, or sinking air, on the western flank of the system. This will result in dry, cool, and less humid conditions for us all weekend. Enjoy it!
As we head into next weekend, the Labor Day holiday looks to come in HOT. The medium range modeling is showing a strong ridge building back into the eastern U.S., similar to what we saw during July. This should result in temperatures heading back into the 90s and the first week or two of September should be a hot one around here.
This latest run of the GFS model shows that an active area of thunderstorms could be knocking on the door by Monday (the actual holiday):
You can see that we are firmly entrenched in the 30+ degree temps (Celcius) here in the Southeast, which translates to 90-95 degree heat wherever there are not t-storms. But that front moving into the MS River valley looks to have a punch, so we might see some nasty weather to knock the temps. back down for a couple of days immediately after Labor Day.
The Summer Outlook has worked out great. We've seen heat. We've seen days in the 70s. We've seen occasional rain to keep the drought away. And now we're seeing Jim Cantore on TWC about to pee himself from excitement over the tropics coming to life. I couldn't be happier with that forecast.
Just a teaser.. but Winter could shape up to be epic this year. Stay tuned. ;o)
-Shawn
