Good morning! Hope all is well. Just wanted to jump on with a quick update on Hurricane Isaias (I plan on providing a more in-depth blog tomorrow once I see how it interacts with Florida). As of 8am, the latest update on Isaias is a CAT 1 Hurricane with 85mph winds, minimum pressure of 987mb, moving NW at 12mph. Currently, 50 miles SE of Nassau, Bahamas it’s expected to approach SE Florida later today into Sunday. Some outer bands are moving through this morning. It is fighting some shear and dry air slowing its forward motion at bit. Besides slowing a bit, the overnight runs have jogged a tad East. This has 2 implications, first being Isaias avoids landfall in Florida (still a possibility), but second keeps it over warmer water thereby allowing it to strengthen as it moves up along the coast. This interaction with Florida is still not etched in stone yet.
What We Know and Don’t Know
While the devil is still in the details (very slight East or West jogs can have significantly different outcomes), here’s a few things we do know. First as mentioned on my Thursday post, while Isaias gets better organized later this weekend, a trough will be digging into the Tennessee Valley acting as a steering mechanism to pull it up the Eastern Seaboard. Second, as it travels further north, its forward motion will accelerate, so it won’t stick around long. Third, the coastal sections from Charleston up to Cape Lookout, Chesapeake to Cape May up to Cape Cod and Maine.
What we don’t know as of yet are the details on how much rain, and the intensity of the storm in terms of wind strength. On the west side of its track will receive heavy rainfall and likewise the east side will contain the stronger winds. I will say regardless of those slight jogs I mentioned normally creating wide variance in outcomes, the combination of a strong jet, moisture within the storm being amplified from the above average sea surface temps along the coast, will produce copious amount of rainfall. Areas prone to flooding in the tri-state area (you all know where those spots are) will significantly impacted.
I don’t have much of a change to my initial forecast which would be for Isaias to eventually strengthen to a strong CAT 1 to possibly 2 (if it avoids landfall in Florida it could hit a CAT3), and remain off the Florida coast. I still see landfall between Myrtle Beach and Morehead City on Sunday night/Monday. Then accelerate north to the Delmarva Peninsula, riding the NE coast, hitting Long Island straight up to Maine.
Initial Timing (rough, subject to change due to Florida interaction)
Later Tonight: off SE Coast of Florida Early Sun Morn: near Jacksonville Mon afternoon/even: landfall, NC Tues Morning: Delmarva to SE NJ Tues Afternoon/even: landfall on LI, then up to the Cape up to ME
That’s it for now. Again I’ll have more specifics on timing, impacts and locations tomorrow. But bottom line, the entire eastern seaboard has a formidable storm headed it’s way over the next few days. Be sure to enjoy the outdoors today (a beaut), and not too bad Sunday (HHH with a chance of morning showers and possible strong storms late in the day to evening hours). For every 3 hour updates on Isaias, jump on my Twitter page (or scroll down on my website) for all the details. Time for a serious nap, little shut eye during hurricane season as weather never sleeps!