Irene: Monday 8/22

Hey everyone . . . back in for Matthew this morning while he takes a little vacation. Of course all eyes on Irene as we go through the next couple of days. It's still well to the south but we are going to continue to keep you updated on the latest forecast path of the storm. This could certainly be a big issue for part of if not all of North Carolina and the surrounding areas. Let's start out with a look at the NHC forecast from this morning.

You can see that the center of the forecast track brings the storm into the GA coast by Saturday morning. The important thing to remember here is the uncertainty this far in advance. You can see the large area outlined around the track, indicating the range of uncertainty around the storm. This area includes the eastern Gulf of Mexico on the west side, and up to the South Carolina coast on the east side. What it does mean is that a landfall somewhere in the southeast US is likely. Keep in mind we didn't have a US landfall of any storm last year so it has been a while since we've dealth with this type of weather here in the states.

Ok now I want to show you an image of the latest run of the tropical forecast models. . .

While you still have a couple of western outliers . . . the bulk of the models are in agreement with bringing the storm east of Florida and then heading pretty much due north after that. I will say that these have been continuing to shift east over the past few days . . . and that trend may continue. What does that mean? If the eastward trend continues then a North Carolina landfall is not completely out of the question. And as we know the longer this is over water the more time is has to gain strength so this could become a serious issue. Again it's not time to sound the alarm just yet, but definitely something you need to watch the next couple of days and have plans in place should this storm come your way.

I'm going to show you one more image here . . .the GFS model from this morning . . .

That is pretty nasty looking. What's interesting is the sharp gradient of activity in the western part of the state. If this panned out we may not see a lot of rain just a lot of wind. But this is bringing huge rain totals in central and eastern NC as well as SC . . . a lot of wind, and a large part of the state in the favorable area for tornado development. Again hopefully the track will continue to move east . . . but this is something to be concerned about at the moment.

Ok . . . so that's the way things stand with Irene right now. I'll continue to update you on the situation through the week. If you have any questions I'll try to answer those as well. Hope you have a great Monday!