Heat (Takes a Break), Humidity (Continues) and Hurricanes (Not to be a Debby Downer)…

A Flooding Fiasco and possible Triple Threat….

1. A break in heat, cooler temps over next 2 weeks
2. Humidity continues with plenty of precipitation this week
3. Remnants of Debby runs up coast?

Good evening atmospheric audience, it’s good to be back here! Especially coming into my favorite time of season of Hurricanes, Nor’easters and eventually snowstorms and blizzards. Hope everybody has been enjoying this hot, humid summer, not! There is a break coming which I’ll discuss shortly. I’ve made a couple tweaks to the website, with more to come. First, an updated weather station for my local followers plus improvements to a few of the links for radar and satellites. More in the pipeline to come.

First, let’s talk about the heat and humidity. We’ve certainly been locked into the sticky pattern for awhile. Do we get a break? At least from the heat, starting Tuesday (upper 80s to 90F on Monday) but not the humidity and rain. A cold front and trough will drop plenty of precip late Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. We get a stunning Thursday (70s with dew points in the 50s!) but the remnants of Debby possibly bring more tropical moisture to our neck of the woods at the end of the week. I’ll go into that shortly. The good news is below normal temperatures prevail over the next 2 weeks. As you can also see below, the 7 AND 14 day temperature anomalies show cooler than normal temps.

I have attached the 10 day temperature outlook for a town near you at the end.

Time to Talk the Topic of Tropics

Unless you live under the preverbal rock we have a tropical system intensifying off the west coast of Florida. As of latest 8pm NHC update, tropical storm Debby is currently located 110 mile W of Tampa, with maximum sustained winds of 70mph and minimum pressure of 992mb. Debby is moving N at 12mph and tracking towards to the Big Bend of Florida on Monday.

It should intensify to CAT 1/2 hurricane before landfall (hit 1), then weaken a bit as it meanders NE over Florida. Given a temporary blocking ridge, Debby will crawl and almost stall over SE GA for at least 2 days dropping immense amount rain. Initial models are forecasting a range of 10 to 30″ from St. Simons to Charleston.

How it handles the atmospheric gears is yet to be determined. The GFS, which is notoriously wrong in instances like this take Debby into the coast, meander and weaken into the proverbial abyss. For the moment I like a track of eventually moving back over the bathwater off the SE coast, strengthening back into a CAT 2/3 hurricane and slamming into the SC/NC (hit 2) coast on Wed/Thurs.

From there, uncertainty increases but a graze off the Northeast coast and tip of LI and Cape is a possibility (hit 3). Given the saturated grounds this would be a potential serious problem. While this is off the radar until next weekend I’ll be keeping on eye on this for now. Take a look at the 2024 Atlantic Hurricane names and through 2029. Are you on there?

That’s it for now. I’ll be back this week with updates on Debby’s track and impact on the East Coast. All interests from Savannah up to Siasconset need to be alert this week. Not to be a Debby Downer but it’s only early August. Buckle up folks. The next hit may be in the gulf in the next 7-14 days as Ernesto is up. Expect a very active season, the details of which will be for another post. Great to be back folks! And remember, weather never sleeps!