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| This morning's satellite phot shows powerful Hurricane Humberto spinning gracefully on the right side of the photo, while what should become Tropical Storm Imelda struggles to organize near northeastern Cuba. |
They're going to be too close to each other, which means they might do weird things, like tumultuous romantic couples do. The two storms might try rotating around each other, or one will pull the other in odd directions or one of them might stall, you never know.
This is a HUGE forecast headache for everybody, mostly because so much is at stake. This situation has the potential to cause immense, life-threatening floods in the Carolinas.
Following what has become a very common trend in Atlantic hurricanes, Humberto in the past couple of days blew up from a humble tropical storm to a Category 4 monster, with top wind speeds of 145 mph. It's possible it will end up as another Category 5 in the next day or so.
As of this morning, Humberto was churning a good distance - 375 miles or so - northeast of the northern Leeward Islands.
The good news in this messy scenario is Humberto will stay well offshore of the East Coast. A landfall would be devastating for a hurricane of this strength. So at least we avoid that.
If not for wannabe Imelda, this situation would be very much like big powerful Hurricane Erin in August. Humberto will expand as it heads northwestward, then northward, then out to sea. It would throw some dangerous rip currents, and some coastal flooding here and there up and down the East Coast.
IMELDA INTERFERES
But the East Coast is not out of the woods, thanks to Wannabe Imelda. As of early this morning, the center of what should become Tropical Storm Imelda was near the northeastern coast of Cuba.
It might already be a tropical storm by the time you read this, because this thing was on the cusp of becoming one as of dawn Saturday.
Early guesses is it will move northward through the Bahamas through early Tuesday, parallel to the Florida coast.
But that's something of a guess, considering Humberto will also be lurking nearby, like a fickle Latin lover with his eyes on Imelda.
By Monday morning, Imelda will probably be somewhere over the Bahamas while big, fat Humberto makes its closest approach to Imelda to its east.
Because Humberto is so strong, it's probably going to be the boss in its relationship with Wannabe Imelda .The trouble is, Humberto isn't exactly being clear on what he's going to do with Imelda.
What follows is a scenario a lot of forecasters have settled on, at least as of Saturday morning. Definitely expect both changes to the hurricane predictions forecast and some surprises. The relationship between Humberto and Imelda could become soap opera-level tumultuous.
THE TROPICAL TELENOVELA
At first, on Sunday and Monday, the two storms would roughly move in tandem toward the north or northwest, like a bride and groom walking down the aisle.
Then Humberto would part ways, accelerating to the Northeast. That might tug Imelda east a little bit, as if it wanted to chase after Humberto. ("Please!!! Come back!!!," I can imagine Imelda wailing).
The tug east would be great as it might prevent a United States landfall. There would still be heavy rain, flooding, coastal surges, wind, that sort of thing. Bad for sure, but not a worst case scenario.
But Humberto might do other things. It might initially tug at Imelda, but then leave it sitting there like a jilted date, just offshore of the Carolinas. That would keep dumping and dumping rain on the eastern Carolinas, causing yet another unwanted catastrophic flood there.
Unlike Helene last year, the big flood, if it happens, would mostly but maybe not completely avoid the mountains of western North Carolina.
Or, after Humberto departs, Imelda might wander indecisively and erratically off the U.S Southeast Coast, maybe looking for another hurricane to hook up with.
A wild card is we don't know how strong Imelda will get. If it remains a relatively weak tropical storm, Imelda would likely be more obedient to Humberto. If it develops into a stronger hurricane, Imelda might get annoyed at misogynistic Humberto and pull a surprise of her own.
Then, all bets are off on what Imelda might do.
I guess we just need to do what we do with all soap operas and telenovelas. Just sit and wait for the next episode. Annoyed meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center are probably taking a cue from Carol Burnett and calling this mess between Humberto and Imelda "As The Stomach Turns."
VERMONT EFFECTS
Pretty much the only easy part of the hurricane forecast is how all this is going to affect us here in Vermont. The answer is: It won't.
Which means our drought will start to reintensify.
Some scattered showers Friday afternoon and evening were the icing on Thursday's welcome, delightful, soggy cake. For instance, a brief downpour dumped another 0.12 inches on Burlington.
While our tropical drama plays out far to our south, strong high pressure will park itself overhead. Some clouds might come in this afternoon and evening as a disturbance zips by to our south but no rain will come of it.
Sunday and Monday and probably Tuesday look dry and warm and sunny. Highs in the warmer valleys could touch 80 degrees, which is unusual but not unheard of for this time of year.
Humberto - far offshore by midweek - will be one of a few atmospheric factors that should pull even stronger, and cooler high pressure down from east of Hudson Bay later in the week. That will probably re-introduce the chance of frost for a couple mornings before warm, sunny weather returns afterwards.
It still looks like our next chance of rain in Vermont won't come along until October 9 or so.
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