Right now the storm is moving to the Northeast so the "capture" and turn in towards land has yet to happen. Until it does, the location of landfall will be a bit of a guessing game with everywhere from Long Island to Delaware still in play.
The most likely scenario is for a central-New Jersey landfall which would likely produce a very serious situation for New York City and areas along the Long Island Sound. Because winds flow counterclockwise around a hurricane, the winds north and northeast of the center will be "piling" water up on shore. Combine that with a full moon and high tide and you get a life-threatening storm surge situation.
Here in the DC area things are still forecast as described in the last post. The weather for the balance of today should be tolerable. Rain will start later this afternoon / evening and things will get breezy. Overnight, though, the rain and wind really get going and by morning we should be seeing winds consistently around 30 mph and heavy rain.
Tomorrow starts bad and just goes downhill from there. Winds increase throughout the day, rain continues. By nightfall gusts to 60 mph are possible.
On Tuesday the rain hangs around but the winds start to decrease somewhat although I think breezy conditions persist until later in the week.
Expect 5-8 inches of rain, stream & creek flooding, maybe some flooding issues in the Old Town, Alexandria and Georgetown, DC areas that are prone to it.
Still watching the models to see how they track the storm. Until that left turn happens, there's still some uncertainty.
Thanks Fernando! So, what happens if the left hook doesn't occur when expected? I thought the hook was supposed to happen already, but the stats say the storm is still moving NE. If the left hook happens later than expected, will that change the landfall location and would that affect the intensity of the hit to DC/NOVA? Or, is this storm just so big that we'll have a huge impact either way?
ReplyDeleteHi Keely! The storm is so large, we'll experience effects either way. The later the left turn happens, the more northern the landfall. Right now, the storm is on track for a south-central New Jersey landfall - pretty much as it's been for the past couple of days. No change to the forecast - tomorrow will be rough, weatherwise. All of the flow patterns suggest that the storm should begin turning overnight although the 11 PM advisory still has a NE movement. Stay safe!
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