Heat, Humidity, Hurricanes and History!

Good morning my atmospheric audience! First and foremost, as it’s the 22nd anniversary of 9/11, please take a few moments out of our rushed lives today to remember all those who lost their lives on that horrible day and give your loved ones an extra hug or phone call. While I was across the street at the World Financial Center that fateful morning, I got home to my family but many didn’t. Please keep ALL those folks and their families in your thoughts and truly appreciate all that we have and take for granted.

As stated yesterday I’m glad to be back after a 5 month hiatus, not under the weather but off the radar so to speak. Life does get in the way of passions sometimes. But I’m thrilled to be able to share my meteorological missives with you folks once again, and grateful to all of those who read and rely on my thoughts and forecasts. My goal is not to update you with daily boring posts, but to provide a leg up on your point and click apps when weather gets to an extreme, whether out 2 weeks, hints to seasonal changes, to micro updates on local storms. Plus, timing couldn’t be more perfect as we roll into late season hurricanes, nor’easters and the eventual turbulent transition to winter!

With that let’s get right to the weather. Per my headline, there’s a ton to cover so to prevent a novel being written, I’ll hit the highlights on the H’s and take a deeper dive in separate upcoming posts.

Summer Summary

First, let’s take a brief look at the summer. Meteorological Summer begins June 1st and ends August 31st. What may surprise many is that a majority of the US had below normal temperatures (with the exception of TX and south central US due to a stationary ridge of high pressure parked over them). See map above. In the northeast, June and August were cooler than normal with a toasty July. What made it seem steamy was the consistent SW flow driving a very humid airmass into the Northeast. In fact, many areas had dew points locked in above 60F, and average’d 65F to 75F! Other factors (which we can look at in detail on another post), are the moderate El Nino, warmer sea surface temps, and the underwater eruption of the Hunga Tonga-Hunga Ha’apai volcano in the South Pacific Ocean in January 2022 (launched a massive amount of water vapor into the stratosphere, a topic for another day). By the way, DP is good measure of air’s actual water vapor content. In simple terms, given a certain temperature it well tell you the “comfort level”. This is a useful guide:

70°F: and above: oppressive

65°F: uncomfortable

50°F: sticky

55°F: pleasant

50°F: and below: invigorating, ahhhhh

Good news, for the most part, excessive heat is done. Bad news, the humidity sticks around for a couple more days. I’ll cover the upcoming week in a moment. As a result of that SW flow and humid airmass brought the Northeast an abundance of rain, especially July. Per the chart above shows a majority of the NE was above normal. My weather station had 22” this summer, nearly 200% of normal. The good news, all of last year’s drought was completely reversed (see below). The potentially bad news is the saturated ground which takes us to our next topic, the tropics.

Hurricane Lee

Unless you live under a rock, most have heard about Hurricane Lee. That said, let’s go over what we know which is the latest observations as of 5am this morning. Lee is currently a CAT 3 hurricane with sustained winds of 120mph and minimum pressure of 950mb. It’s currently located about 650mi SSE of Bermuda traveling NW at a snails pace of 8mph. Over very favorable conditions for rapid development, i.e. bath waters and little if any wind sheer. While large in diameter with hurricane force winds spreading outward of 75mi and tropical storm force winds out 175mi, the wind field will rapidly expand in the coming days. The current track takes Lee north of the Virgin islands and Puerto Rico over the next day or 2. Then moves due north parallel and away from SE Coast. However, given the the shear size, significant swells will create dangerous rip tides and life threatening surf along coastal sections. What’s next is where the uncertainly arises. If you see anything on social media about a CAT 5 hitting NY or New England, that categorically false. First, landfall is unknown at the moment, and as Lee moves over cooler waters from Franklin’s path, it will weaken.

Currently, most model runs take Lee north into Nova Scotia by next weekend. IF that’s the case, the coast line, from Cape Hatteras to Cape May, up to Cape Ann to Cape Elizabeth will still feel the impact given the large wind field. The back bays along the Seacoast in NH will more than likely see moderate to significant flooding. Rip tides, beach erosion, and coastal flooding are also a big concern. This is indeed a complex forecast and a very fluid (pun intended) situation. There are many atmospheric gears that steer tropical systems.  

However, here’s where we could have a serious problem. This not a forecast, nor is to create fear. But to give a heads-up of the potential impact to New England IF Lee’s track jogs west. This is where the saturated ground concern comes into play. Many of my long-term readers should recall my explanation of wind direction and tree damage along the East Coast. Normally winds come from the west. Given Atlantic hurricanes rotate counterclockwise, trees loaded with heavy wet leaves, especially with saturated roots, cannot handle strong east winds. Even 60 to 80mph winds would cause extensive damage across New England. Again, we are 5-7 days away and plenty of changes in its track will take place. But given the setup, and past history of previous historic hurricanes hitting New England, the risk shouldn’t be taken lightly. It’s always better to be prepared and just a few leaves come down vs doing nothing and you’re without power for days if not weeks. We’ll have a better idea with more confidence in the next couple of days, of which, I will be front and center with up to the minute details.

History

What many folks don’t realize, either you weren’t born yet, don’t know anyone who has experienced Hurricanes first hand, or haven’t looked back and read the history, the Northeast has experienced numerous hurricanes in the past. Just to name a few (you can find the details online for each): Gloria in ’85, CAT1 into LI/CT, Donna ’62 CAT2 into LI, Edna ’54 CAT2 Cape Cod/ MV, Carol ’54 CAT3 into RI (135mph winds on Block Island), The Great Atlantic Hurricane ’44 CAT1 into CT/RI, The Great New England Hurricane ’38 CAT3, just to name a few.

The records go all the way back to the 17th century. Last point, more recent hurricanes are not getting larger and more powerful (all the meteorological historical statistics from previous canes are there to see and are well documented). The difference now is that we’ve seen tremendous population growth along with structures that have been built along coastal sections (many on literal sand barriers) and are in direct path of these storms. Hence more damage. Plus, technology is vastly improved. More storms are being named now, partly due to satellites, which were first used in 1960. While we’ve been relatively lucky since Sandy, there’s no reason we can’t have a repeat of the 1940s and 1950s where over 23 hurricanes ravaged the east coast. Weather, although not exact, tends to repeat itself over time. So much more to share, but on another post for another day.

Even behind Lee, we’re not done folks. While Margot will stay out to sea, a couple of tropical waves coming off Africa need to be watched for development (Nigel and Ophelia are next) and track toward our shoreline in the coming weeks. Stay tuned. Btw, if you have vacation time planned for coastal sections or the Caribbean, be sure to include trip insurance.

The Week Ahead

For the next 3 days, it’s more of the same. Expect warm and humid conditions from Baltimore to Bangor, with the chance of off and on showers. We finally get a break from the humidity late Wednesday. A strong cold front barrels across the Northeast with strong thunderstorms, yet brings a refreshing airmass, one we haven’t felt in a long time. Temps will drop in the low 50s Thursday and Friday morning, and top out in the low 70s during the day. Spectacular Fall weather! But we can’t let our guard down as lethal Lee is lurking off shore.

That’s it for now. For those headed to the biggest Jets game in years at the Meadowlands tonight, looks like a wet tailgate as off and on heavy downpours hit the parking lots between 4-8pm but should clear by kickoff. As I always do during hurricanes, if you like nearly every 3 hour updates on the details with each storm, and other entertaining weather missives, follow my Twitter (X) page @weatherremarks (or if you don’t use, you can see my 5 most recent tweets by scrolling down near the bottom of my website). Time for a brief CATnap (see what I did there?). Where else can you get reliable, accurate, data packed and pun filled weather forecasts?? Oh and remember, weather never sleeps!