Gulf Tropical Trouble Brews While Immediate East Coast Harassed By Offshore Storms

Not a lot of organized storminess off the East Coast
in this satellite photo taken this morning. But what
there is out there, combined with an easterly flow
and King Tides, is causing damaging coastal flooding
from New England to Florida. 

 While we in Vermont remain in dry, pleasant and for the most part rather sunny weather, right along East Coast it's been a different story. 

The same blocked weather pattern that has kept fair weather high pressure nearby, which has been shunting rain away from Vermont, stalled storminess off the coast has been causing trouble. 

 On top of all that, later this week could bring new tropical trouble to the Gulf Coast. More on that in a bit. 

COASTAL FLOODS/RAINS

Southeastern New England has taken much of the brunt of this. Over the past two or three days, Cape Cod, Massachusetts has gotten two to as much as 6.5 inches of rain from a persistent onshore flow from that offshore storminess. 

Orleans, Massachusetts had more than nine inches of rain within about three and a half days. 

Scituate, Massachusetts is famous for those big storm waves crashing into seaside homes during nor'easters, and this offshore storm brought more of the same to the town.

But Scituate had another big problem to deal with. One of those oceanside homes caught fire.  The strong winds fanned the flames, so the house was destroyed and two adjacent ones damaged. No word on whether the waves and wind helped cause the blaze. 

The Cape Cod rain there has tapered off and the sun has actually been out on and off up and down the rest of the East Coast. But the storminess, and easterly wind flow and seasonal King Tides are causing coastal flooding from New England to Florida. 

Much of this is classic "sunny weather" coastal flooding. Sea level rise brought on by climate change has led to bouts of flooding even when there's not much in the way of a storm to push water inland. 

Screen grab of video of Rodanthe, North Carolina
as erosion eats away at the coast.  Since this video
was taken last week the two houses on the right
that are in the water collapsed into the ocean. 

In Rodanthe, North Carolina on the outer banks, two more houses collapsed into the ocean this weekend as high tides and battering waves smashed into the eroding coastline. So far nine homes have fallen into the sea in that town in recent years, including four this year.  

One of those houses just collapsed in August as Hurricane Ernesto passed by far, far offshore.  Other homes there are teetering and ready to go. 

Coastal flood warnings remain in effect up and down the East Coast today. The flooding in New Jersey, Delaware, Maryland and Virginia might well be high enough later today and tonight to cause damage to seaside homes and businesses.

GULF HURRICANE?

Something seems to be brewing off the coast of Mexico, and that could cause trouble for the United States Gulf Coast later this week. 

There's not even any kind of storm yet, but unsettled weather in the western Caribbean Sea seems like it wants to eventually organize into a possible tropical storm. If that happens, most of the computer models take it north to eventually hit somewhere between Louisiana and Florida.

It's way too soon to figure out how big this thing will get, and who knows? It might not ever get its act together. But the Gulf of Mexico waters are super warm, and that's jet fuel for wannabe hurricanes. It all depends on whether atmospheric winds will support a would be tropical storm.

Since it's way to early to figure out if there will be a Gulf of Mexico hurricane and where it would go, it's even harder to figure out whether that thing will have any effect on us here in Vermont. Bottom line: We have no idea whether we'll see the effects of it here. 

Signs continue to point to a somewhat wetter pattern over us, which would keep the weather unsettled over us here in Vermont during the second half of the upcoming week. 

A storm system coming in from the west looks like it will bring us some showers. There's a low chance moisture from any tropical system in the South could get pulled up this way to give us heavy rains. But the odds really seem stacked against that scenario. At least if most long range forecasts pan out. 

In fact, we might only have a brief showery period late in the week before persistent dry weather re-establishes itself over us. 

Time will tell.