"Not Tropical Storm" Unleashes Tropical Storm Conditions On Carolinas

High clouds from I guess we can call Failed But Not
Failed Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight beginning'
to stream into Vermont skies this morning. 

 What was knows as Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight (sexy name!) over the weekend failed to live up to that potential on Monday.  

But to people in the Carolinas, that failed potential didn't matter. They still got socked with what amounted to a gusty torrential, flood creating tropical storm. 

Some storm systems - especially this time of year - can feel like tropical storms even when they're not. These things need to meet certain criteria to be designated as a tropical system.

Over the weekend, a storm formed along an old cold front off the Carolina coast. The presence of the front meant it wasn't tropical. For one, there was a temperature gradient from northwest to southeast across the system, which is something you did see with tropical storms and hurricanes. Plus, this thing didn't have an exact center.

Still, the National Hurricane Center designated the storm Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight. The storm was over warm Gulf Stream waters, and the forecasters figured it might acquire the characteristics of a tropical storm.  They were poised, if necessary, to re-name it Tropical Storm Helene.

Helene never happened. The storm never did have a nice center with winds swirling relatively evenly around it.  Also, temperatures increased as you moved northwest to southeast across its cloud mass, meaning it was more of a "regular" storm.

But to people in parts of North Carolina, this was a storm to be reckoned with.  It poured up to a foot and a half of rain near the city of Wilmington, causing what the National Weather Service called life-threatening flash flooding.  Winds right along the coast gusted to between 50 and 70 mph.  Storm surges eroded already fragile beaches on the Outer Banks. 

For all practical purposes, North Carolina was indeed smacked by a strong tropical storm, even though it technically wasn't one. 

WHAT'S NEXT

This Not-Helene Not Tropical Storm headed inland and is mostly dissipating. Its remnants will head northeast, eventually going off the coast south of New England. 

For us in Vermont, this phantom storm will help shake up and slightly alter, but not end our ongoing stretch of dry, warm weather. 

First, starting today, this thing is throwing a veil of high clouds across the sky over Vermont. That'll  dim the sun a little, and hold daytime temperatures back by a couple degrees. It will still be unseasonably warm today and tomorrow, but those high clouds will make the blue sky, already a little hazy with wildfire smoke, even less blue.

Eventually, the former storm will help tug a back door cold front our way. It's called back door because it's coming at us from the "wrong way."  Normally, cold fronts come from the west or northwest. This one is coming to our "back door," i.e. from the northeast.

This will drop temperatures by the weekend down to levels that are merely slightly warmer than average, not super warm.

We might even squeeze a sprinkle or two in a few spots out of this slight change, but overall, high pressure will keep dominating, and the long, long September dry spell will continue. 

There's something else I need to stomp out right now.  You might see people who seeking social media clicks say a major hurricane will hit New England on or around September 29.

It ain't happening. Or at least the chances of it happening are ridiculously low. There was one lonely computer model that had such a hurricane hitting New England at that point.  That was just one of many, many models. The other models don't have such a storm anywhere around us. 

Plus, you can't predict the path of a hurricane that hasn't even formed yet, and might not ever even form at all.  

Eventually, it will rain.  I wouldn't be at all surprised if we see some rain on the closing days of this month. But a destructive hurricane? No.