Humberto, Imelda Find Love After All In A New World Of Category 5 Hurricanes

Weakening Hurricane Humberto, right, and strengthening
Hurricane Imelda, of the Southeast U.S. coast in this
mornings satellite photo. High clouds extending all
the way to New England are the warm "exhaust" 
from the storms. The two hurricanes will 
head east out to sea. 

Hurricanes Humberto and Imelda continue to foster their close relationship in the southwest Atlantic Ocean, now pretty far offshore of the United States.  

I painted the two very close to each other tropical systems as a sort of tumultuous couple in my Saturday post. One of many guesses were that Humberto would accelerate away leaving a jilted Imelda to wander near the U.S. coastline. 

But, instead, they worked things out. Humberto is tugging Imelda along for a cruise across the Atlantic Ocean.

That comes as a big relief of the United States, because it means no landfall, no big flood, no disaster . Instead, the Southeast is just seeing relatively minor coastal effects like rain, gusty, non-damaging winds and some rough surf and rip currents. 

It turns out Humberto and Imelda were made for each other.

They are incredibly close together by tropical storm standards, with only 580 miles separating them as of yesterday. In the past only nine pairs of tropical storms or hurricanes have come as close or closer to each other as Humberto and Imelda, according to meteorologist Michael Lowry. 

Imelda is now swept up in the atmospheric steering currents created by Humberto and both are heading northeastward together out into the open Atlantic. Both will eventually die in the cold waters out there. 

Before that could happen, Imelda strengthened into a hurricane this morning with top winds of 75 mph. It could achieve winds of 100 mph within a day or two. Imelda is expected to pass near Bermuda Wednesday night or Thursday morning, so they could receive quite a blow.

Meanwhile, Hurricane Humberto is to the northeast of Imelda and tugging her along. Humberto was briefly a Category 5 storm with winds of 160 mph. But as of this morning, it was down to 100 mph. Hurricanes are like big chimneys.

Warm air is pushed upward into the upper atmosphere.  The "exhaust" from the Imelda's chimney is helping to suppress Humberto's strength.  Also, strong upper level winds caused in part by the atmospheric chaos created by two big storms is also weakening Humberto by stripping its intense thunderstorms away from its center. 

You could see the "exhaust" from Imelda on satellite photos yesterday and this morning.  

And overhead here in Vermont. That warm air belching from hurricanes often takes the form of high thin cirrus clouds. Those thin clouds that went south to north over Vermont yesterday afternoon and evening, and produced another nice sunset, was part of the exhaust plume from Imelda. 

That Humberto reached Category 5 status before its tango with Imelda is disconcerting, since these Category 5 monsters are becoming more frequent in the Atlantic Ocean. Category 5 hurricanes are the worst of the worst, with top wind speeds of at least 156 mph. 

Humberto was the 12th Atlantic Category 5 hurricane in the last decade, and the fourth in the past two years. Beryl and Milton were Category 5s last year, and this year we had Erin and Humberto. Unlike last year's Category 5s, neither storm bothered the United States all that much.  

Hurricane season is not over, and there could be a couple or few more tropical storms or hurricanes between now and the end of November. However, the National Hurricane Center says they don't expect any new tropical storms to form over the next week or so.  

Hurricane Erin Update: It Maintains Its Power. North Carolina Evacuations As Storm Surge, Tropical Storm Watch Issued

This afternoon's satellite view of Hurricane Erin,
Tropical storm and storm surge watches just
went up for coastal North Carolina. 

Hurricane Erin continues to cause a lot of headaches and worries, especially for a storm that will not make landfall.  

As of 5 p.m. today, Hurricane Erin's top winds were still at 140 mph, up from 125 mph on Sunday. It was catered about 815 miles, south, southeast of Cape Hatteras and moving toward the northwest at 10 mph.

A tropical storm and storm surge watch were issued late this afternoon for much of Cape Hatteras/the Outer Banks as winds there should reach at least 39 mph when Erin makes its closest approach Wednesday night and Thursday.

To nobody's surprise, evacuation orders went up for the Outer Banks of North Carolina.  Hurricane Erin will not make direct landfall in the United States. But the power of Erin, and its expanding wind field, will stir up enormous waves.

Under a Dare County, North Carolina emergency order, tourists to the outer banks were told to start getting out by 10 a.m. today. Permanent residents need to start leaving by 8 a.m. tomorrow.  Long lines of cars could be seen today on Route 12, heading north off Hatteras Island to destinations inland. 

The problem for North Carolina is that Hurricane Erin is already larger in size than most hurricanes, and it's getting even bigger.  As of late this afternoon, hurricane force winds of 74 mph or more extended out 80 miles from the center and those tropical storm winds go out 230 miles from the center. 

Although Erin is generally moving in the direction forecasters have said for days it would, the hurricane will pass a little closer to Cape Hatteras than meteorologists thought a few days ago. So that makes the impacts a little worse than originally thought. 

All these factors mean waves of 15 to 20 or more feet are forecast to slam into the Outer Banks, which would cause terrible erosion, flooding and destruction of coastal homes and other buildings,

The only real way in or out of the Outer Banks is Route 12. Emergency managers are sure the road will be inundated and impassable as Erin blows by.   If anybody stays behind, emergency responders won't be able to reach them. That's why they're kicking everybody out of the Outer Banks. 

In Rodanthe, North Carolina, at least two homes are in grave danger of collapsing into the ocean when Erin passes through. More than a dozen homes have fallen into the ocean since 2020, including six last year. 

Sea level rise and increasingly ferocious storms due to climate change are at least partly to blame for all this. Additionally the land in the region is slowly sinking as well.

There are unconfirmed reports of 50 rescues at Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina today already due to high surf and rip currents. 

Erin might be weakening a tiny bit late this afternoon, thanks to some dry air the hurricane gulped in today from the north. But the weakening will either stop, or be so slow as to not make a difference on how it affects North Carolina, or anyplace else for that matter. 

Tropical storm conditions are already hitting or soon will hit the Turks and Caicos, and much of the Bahamas. It'll also eventually get stormy in Bermuda. 

In Puerto Rico, the outer rain bands of Erin were enough to bring winds and rains heavy enough to cut power to 50,000 customers. The Virgin Islands also dealt with gales and flooding Sunday.

Dangerous surf, rip currents and waves are expected up and down the entire United States East Coast and most of Canada's east coast as well this week.  

 

Hurricane Ernesto Ensures Start Of Hurricane Season Fairly Busy, But What's Next?

Hurricane Ernesto today as it began its departure
from Bermuda. 

Hurricane season so far is a bit quieter than the gangbuster predictions we saw earlier this year.

But it's still a busy one, especially since we've already had a few strong ones and it's only mid-August. and there's also plenty of time for the season to really, really ramp up. 

The current storm is Hurricane Ernesto, out in the Atlantic Ocean. 

Ernesto made landfall on west side of Bermuda at around 4:30 a.m. Saturday with top winds of about 85 mph.

It's a slow mover, so Bermuda was hit by hurricane force winds from Friday night well into today. A third of the island's electricity was out.  Bermuda is a rather wealthy nation with sturdy buildings, so not much structural damage is anticipated. 

Bermuda is often affected by hurricanes, but since it's such a small target, actual landfalls are relatively rare. It was reportedly the 12th landfalling hurricane on Bermuda since 1850. Of course, scores of other hurricanes whose eyes never touched the island still managed to unleash hurricane force winds there. 

Ernesto is something like 1,000 miles off the East Coast of the United States, but its effects are still being felt. 

In Rodanthe, on North Carolina's Outer Banks, an oceanfront house collapsed Friday evening into the Atlantic Ocean as swells and high tides from Ernesto hit the East Coast.

Seven houses in Rodanthe have collapsed into the ocean in the past four years due at least in part to sea level rise, climate change and storms. Two of the houses collapsed in May and were on the same block as the one that went Friday. 

According to The Island Free Press:

"Chicamacomico Fire and Rescue posted video of the house located at 23214 East Corbina Drive floating into the breakers Friday evening.

Dare County property records show the 1,428 square foot residence was built in 1973, and owned by a couple from Hershey, Pennsylvania. The total tax value of the property and structure was $356,400.

The house, which had been an active vacation rental until earlier this summer, was unoccupied at the time of the collapse. No injuries were reported."

Reports indicate prior storms earlier this summer weakened the house and its supports, making the building unsafe. That's why it was unoccupied on what was otherwise a lovely Cape Hatteras summer Friday evening. 

Elsewhere on the East Coast, beachgoers  from Atlantic Canada to Florida are advised to be wary of rip currents and high surf emanating from Ernesto.

This year was forecast to be a supercharged hurricane season.  There hasn't been a lot of storms at any given time so far. 

But this hurricane season has so far been somewhat busier than it looks.

One measure of hurricane activity is something called Accumulated Cyclone Energy, or ACE. It's a measurement that incorporates storm intensity and duration. 

Because Beryl, Debby and now Ernesto were powerful and lasted quite awhile, the ACE count so far this year is way above normal for this point in August. 

The ACE count for the Atlantic hurricane season as of August 15 is a bit under 50, compared to the normal of around 1

The fifth tropical storm of the year, the one that begins with "E" normally on average forms on August 22, so Ernesto was a little early.

The "F" storm, which will be Francine this year, on average forms on August 29. So we'll wait and see whether Francine forms by then or not.  

We're waiting and seeing because at the moment, after Ernesto, the folks at the National Hurricane doesn't see anything on the radar forming over the next five days at least. There's still a lot of dry air and some Saharan dust circulating over the tropical Atlantic, which is suppressing tropical storms for now. 

Even though forecasts for tropical storm and hurricane activity in the Atlantic look fairly minimal in the short term, it could really start popping at the end of this month and in September. By then, dry air is forecast to start moistening up. Ocean temperatures where hurricanes tend to develop are at near record highs. That's jet fuel for tropical storms and hurricanes.

Plus wind shear, which tends to rip apart wannabe tropical storms before they really can get going, typically declines over the tropical Atlantic in late August and September. 

No guarantees, but we might not have escaped a wild season just yet. Hell, it's been difficult to begin with. Hurricane Beryl caused damage from the Windward Islands to Texas to Atlantic Canada, including here in Vermont. 

Hurricane Debby trashed parts of Florida before causing serious flooding and wind damage in many parts of the eastern U.S. Debby is why we had such a nasty wind storm in Vermont last Friday.

Ernesto, before harassing Bermuda, caused damage in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

Whether the rest of the season is busy or not, where hurricanes go is even more important than how many.  If big ones keep plowing into land, this could be a super expensive season. If we're fortunately and they keep curving out to sea, then we've obviously dodged a bunch of bullets. 

Atlantic Suddenly Full Of Tropical Danger After Quiet Early Season

Satellite view of powerful Hurricane Fiona east of the
Bahamas this morning. 

 This week,the Atlantic Ocean has really gotten active with hurricanes, tropical storms and wannabe tropical storms. 

As of this morning, we had one major hurricane out there, a tropical storm, a really worrying cluster of storms that will probably turn into a tropical storm, and two other disturbances worth watching.

Some of these will ultimately affect land. So far, up here in New England we're safe, though we'll feel a few effects from that powerful hurricane. Let's take 'em one at a time. 

HURRICANE FIONA:

Yesterday I posted about Hurricane Fiona's destructive slap at Puerto Rico, and how its rickety, corruption-riddled electrical grid collapsed in the face of the hurricane. 

Fiona also caused quite a bit of damage in eastern Dominican Republic, the Turks and Caicos Islands.

This morning, Hurricane Fiona was formidable, a Category 4 storm with top winds of 130 mph. It'll head northeastward, brushing past Bermuda and flinging tropical storm force winds through that island.

A strong cold front heading into the Northeastern United States will help keep Fiona well off the  United States coast. But that same cold storm system will turn the northeastward traveling Fiona more directly northward starting Friday night when its center is far off the southeastern New England coast. 

That's bad for Canada. Fiona is forecast to make a beeline for Nova Scotia, and probably Labrador and Newfoundland. 

Many things make this bad for Canada. For one thing, Fiona will be racing northward, so won't have much time to weaken over colder waters. Worse, the water isn't that cold. Sea surface temperatures off the coast of New England and Canada are much, much warmer than normal, and that will slow down any weakening trend. 

The expected track of Hurricane Fiona is worrisome
for those in eastern Canada

Still, Fiona will be making a transition from hurricane to large non-tropical storm, which means it will expand in size. 

Intense winds are forecast over the weekend, especially in eastern Nova Scotia, and flooding rains are expected in the rest of the region. This could be the deepest, strongest hurricane on record in that region. 

Here in New England, the expanding Fiona, combined with that strong polar high coming in, will create pretty strong north winds starting tomorrow and especially on Friday. 

Here in Vermont, the winds won't be nearly strong enough to cause damage, but you'll notice a lot of autumn leaves blowing through the air.  

The good news for us is the persistent winds Thursday and Friday nights will keep frost from being as widespread as it would otherwise be in this weather pattern.

TROPICAL STORM GASTON

This tropical storm formed yesterday way out over the central Atlantic Ocean, sort of halfway between Virginia and Portugal. 

It had top winds of 65 mph this morning and probably will get a little stronger. I wouldn't worry too much about this one. It'll just meander out there in the central Atlantic for a few days. It'll just be a storm that bothers the fishies. 

DISTURBANCE 98L

The National Hurricane Center gives a number and letter to areas of suspicious tropical weather that might develop into something. They're keeping a very close eye on one called 98L. Unlike Gaston, this one is worth worrying about. 

Lots of tropical activity in the Atlantic this morning. 

It's southeast of the Leeward Islands at the moment, headed toward the Caribbean Sea.  It's almost guaranteed to develop into a tropical storm, and perhaps eventually a hurricane. Although it's too soon to tell what it will eventually do, many computer models bring this system into the Gulf of Mexico or near the southeastern United States around the end of this month. Stay tuned! 

TWO OTHER DISTURBANCES

One other disturbance way out in the tropics is not expected to develop anytime soon, but still bears watching. Yet another thing about to enter the Atlantic from the west coast of Africa has a better chance of developing, but early indications are it will quickly turn north and not bother anyone. We hope. 

Fiona's Fury, A Puerto Rican Utility Scandal And What's Next For Hurricane

Wreckage of a Puerto Rican home after Hurricane
Fiona. In a glimmer of reassurance, the sign
was written after the hurricane by the person
who lived there and translates to 
"I am alive."

Puerto Rico this morning is reeling from massive flash flooding and power outages thanks to Hurricane Fiona. The entire island of Puerto Rico was blacked out as Hurricane Fiona swept over the island Sunday.  

That was a function of both the fury of the storm and the scandal of a badly mismanaged power grid. 

Winds gusted past 100 mph in communities along the south shore of Puerto Rico, so you can understand why power would have failed there. On the northern end of the island, in places like San Juan, winds only gusted to 40 to 50 mph. 

In a normal world, those winds, combined with the severe flooding would have caused some outages. But the fact that everyone is blacked out is an infrastructure scandal and not entirely a hurricane disaster. 

As AccuWeather reports: 

"LUMA Energy, the private company that handles the transmission and distribution of electricity in Puerto Rico, stated that full restoration could take days 'due to the magnitude and scope of the blackout,' but the company has the necessary resources to respond to Fiona's effects on the grid."

Given LUMA's track record, and the power authorities in Puerto Rico before that, I'm not convinced. 

The Washington Post led with this story Monday:

"The hurricane winds that knocked out power to the entire island of Puerto Rico over the weekend encountered an electrical grid that experts liken to a house of cards: a fragile, decrepit, patchwork system running on old equipment that has failed to substantially modernize since the U.S. territory's deadliest storm, Hurricane Maria, swept through five years before."

A state-run utility that should manage electricity generation is bankrupt and negotiations to restructure a nasty $9 billion in debt is still mired in mediation and recrimination. Even before Fiona, power disruptions were increasing in Puerto Rico, suggesting incompetence or worse. 

Most of Puerto Rico's power is generated on the southern side of the island. Transmission lines run north through mountainous terrain, then on to the more heavily populated north. Storms in the remote mountains often disrupt these transmission lines. Puerto Rico ought to rethink its power grid, but that takes tons of money, which the territory clearly doesn't have, and imagination, which seems to be lacking, too. 

Hurricane Fiona is forecast to make a beeline for far
eastern Canada as a powerful storm over the weekend. 

The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency has funded billions to help Puerto Rico recover from Hurricane Maria, notes the Washington Post. A large share of that money was to go toward modernizing the electrical grid, but distribution of those funds have been slow to say the least.  

It'll be even slower now.  Rainfall on Puerto Rico was cataclysmic, with up to 33 inches of rain reported. Some of the flooding was even worse than what happened during Maria. 

Fiona moved on to trash eastern Dominican Republic with more wind and flood damage. It cruised through the eastern Turks and Caicos today after having gotten even stronger, with top winds of 115 mph.  

Forecasters predict the hurricane will continue northward, passing close to Bermuda as a powerful Category 4 storm. 

A strong cold front that will give us in Vermont a chilly end of the week will keep Fiona well off the U.S East Coast. However, chances are growing that Fiona, while transitioning to a powerful non-tropical storm, will blast eastern Nova Scotia, Newfoundland and Labrador over the weekend. 

Video: 

Summary from Inside Edition, either click on this link or click on image below:

An ABC News report, too: 

 

Vermonters Should Worry About Frost/Freeze, NOT Hurricane Teddy

 Just a friendly reminder to my fellow Green Mountain Boys and Girls that if you didn't get any frost this morning, you're sure to get a frost and freeze tonight, tomorrow night and the night after.  Protect those outdoor plants if you can. 

Sunday morning will be the coldest.  The coldest hollows could get down to near 20 degrees! Most of the rest of us will be between 26 and 32 degrees. Brrrr! These readings will be near record lows. 

Meanwhile, there might be a few of you out there who heard or saw reports that powerful Hurricane Teddy, way out in the Atlantic Ocean, will take a hard left turn and slam New England next week. 

Be assured that No. Nope. Uh-Uh.  That's not going to happen.  Unless you live up in places like Nova Scotia, Canada. There could be some real problems up there. 

Hurricane Teddy is a beast. As of early this morning, it had top winds of 130 mph, making it a Category 4 storm. It is forecast to be somewhere near Bermuda by Monday morning. That would make it the second time in a week that Bermuda has been lashed by a hurricane in a week. 

By the way, since the EXTREMELY glitchy and "improved" Blogger won't let me caption images today, the photo in this post is a satellite view of Hurricane Teddy out in the open Atlantic Ocean this morning. 

Usually, when a hurricane goes near Bermuda, it afterwards races northeastward out to sea and dies in the cold North Atlantic waters. That's what Hurricane Paulette did last week. 

Especially a couple days ago, the European weather model suggested that Hurricane Teddy would take a hard left turn and slam into New England, heading at us from the east. 

This had echoes of Hurricane Sandy in 2012. You might remember that the European Model was the first by far to tell us that Hurricane Sandy, off the United States east coast, would take a hard left turn and hit New Jersey.  the other weather models didn't pick up on this idea until late in the game. 

Sandy did hit New Jersey and New York, with devastating results. 

Everybody marveled at how accurate the European model was. 

That was then and this is now. For some reason, the European weather model has really struggled with predicting tropical storms and hurricanes this year. 

As of this morning, the European model was really starting to fall in line with the other models. 

True, the European is sort of,  kinda picked up on something A trough of low pressure off the East Coast, plus that massive high pressure system that's causing our frosty weekend, would not allow Teddy to race off to the northeast like Paulette and so many of her siblings. 

Instead, it seems like Teddy will head due north and possibly slam Nova Scotia by early Wednesday.  That will be bad for them, of course, and I hope the forecast changes for their sake 

Teddy might cause some wind and rain for Downeast Maine. It will also cause some rip currents, higher than normal tides and rip currents on New England coastal beaches. 

Also, since tides are already on the high side over the next few days due to astronomical cycles, there is likely to be a fair amount of beach erosion, unfortunately, from Maine to at least as far south as New Jersey. 

For us in Vermont, it appears the worst that Teddy would do to us is throw a few clouds at us, and maybe create some steady, but not strong northerly breezes.

Elsewhere, another  tropical storm is expected to form in the Gulf of Mexico.  It's expected to meander around aimlessly for the next few days.