Irene heading north

Well by now everybody is aware of the situation across the east coast. Hurricane warnings are in effect for the entire coast of North Carolina. Irene has weakened a bit overnight back to a cat 2 but on the high end of that so there really isn't much difference in terms of the effect of the storm. Tropical storm force winds extend 290 miles out from the center of Irene. Here is the latest GFS model at 1 PM tomorrow.
We continue to see that tight gradient across the state. Winds will range from near 100 mph across the outer banks to a stiff breeze around 25 mph in the western areas. Rainfall will range from 6-10+ inches in the east to mainly dry conditions in the west. For the Triad and surrounding areas maybe a passing shower or storm but that will be about it. Things will be dry Sunday and stay that way for the next several days.

Hope everybody is prepared for the storm as we go through the next few days. Again unless you're in the eastern half of the state this will be a non issue for you. Nice weather for the weekend, hope you enjoy it!!!

Thanks for having me fill in this week. Matt should be back in camp over the next couple of days.

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Irene Track Update

The actual forecast track from the NHC has been shifted just slight to the west. It does look more likely now that we will see our first US landfall of a hurricane since 2008 in North Carolina. However overall the situation remains the same as mentioned early. Here is the latest track from the NHC.

You can see a hurricane watch in effect for most of the NC coastline. Again as I've been saying the western half of the state will be relatively unphased by this storm. However it will be destructive for the eastern half. The models have really come in line with the current track, and this will be a major issue for much of the east coast.

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Thursday Irene: eastern NC will get hit

Time to get ready for a significant impact to the eastern part of the state as we go through the next few days. Irene continues to be a very large category 3 with hurricane winds extending up to 70 miles away from the center and tropical storm force winds 255 miles out from the center. This will probably be a category 4 storm at some point today before weakening a bit as it gets farther to the north. Here is the latest run of forecast models.

The eastward shift that we saw for several days earlier in the week has pretty much come to an end. The models have been fairly consistent over the past few runs which means I am fairly confident we can start to talk about the forecast path at this point. You can see they are still skirting the outer banks, but I do think we will see at least a brief landfall over the barrier islands before this storm continues north into New England.




A hurricane watch is now in effect for the coast north of Surf City, NC to the NC/Virginia border. A tropical storm watch is in effect for north of Edisto Beach, SC to Surf City, NC. Again whether or not we see an actual landfall in the state, the conditions will be basically the same.


Let me put the new GFS model run on from this morning. . .

This is for around 6 PM Saturday evening. It shows a tremendous amount of wind and rain in the eastern part of the state and along the coast. Storm surge will be an issue with this sytem and especially coastal erosion. We will start to see deteriorating conditions through the day on Saturday. The storm is forecasted to be weaker at this point but could still do a lot of damage. Anybody with interests in the eastern half of the state needs to make plans now to protect property.



As usual I'll come back later this morning with the new hurricane center forecast of Irene.

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