Hurricane Elsa Update: Hispaniola, Cuba, Florida Still Targets

Satellite view of Hurricane Elsa Friday after in trashed
Barbabos. Image from NOAA.

Early Season Hurricane Elsa was continuing its march through the Caribbean Sea this morning, having trashed Barbados and setting its sights on Hispaniola, Cuba and Florida. 

Surprising to me, anyway, given its location, this was the first hurricane in more than 60 years to strike Barbados. Numerous homes there collapsed or lost their roofs, and there was widespread additional damage there and on nearby St. Lucia. So far, no deaths have been reported. 

Elsa's forward motion is around 30 mph, which is awfully fast for a hurricane. Top winds with the storm were 75 mph, making it barely a hurricane. It's a little less powerful than yesterday, when top winds were 85 mph.

Elsa's forward speed is forecast to slow down somewhat today and tomorrow. Elsa should be near the southern coast of Hispaniola tonight, and be affecting Jamaica and Cuba tomorrow. By Monday and Tuesday, South Florida should be feeling the effects of Elsa. 

There's still a lot of questions as to how strong Elsa will be in the coming days. If it interacts a lot with the mountains of Hispaniola and Cuba, it could weak a lot.  If it stays in the open water south of those islands for awhile, it could maintain most of its strength.

It'll weaken heading north over Cuba, but how much is the question. And will Elsa be able to restrengthen a bit once it emerges into the water south of the Florida Keys?

And what about Florida?  We don't know if Elsa will target the area around Miami, or head west up toward Tampa, or plow right into central Florida.  In any event, Floridians ought to be preparing for some coastal storm surges and especially inland flooding.

It's been wet in much of Florida lately and the ground in many spots is pretty saturated. If Elsa dumps some heavy rain around there, we could be looking at plenty of floods. We'll see.

Beyond Florida, Elsa will move toward the northeast, but it's still way too soon to have a good handle on whether it will affect New England, and if so, how. 

A Break From The Heat And Needed Rain. Elsewhere, Elsa

Drought persists and even expanded a little bit in 
Vermont during the past week. It's raining in most
of the state today, so that's a piece of good news! 

 If you needed a break from the heat of summer, this is your weekend in Vermont.

You'll also need to dodge some showers, but that's OK we needed the rain. Bonus: The rainiest day of the stretch is today. 

 You might have to deal with some scattered showers tomorrow, but you should go on with planned outdoor activities. Sunday looks even a little better.  

Plus, we don't have to deal with any hot-tish weather until Monday or Tuesday. 

Most of us here in Vermont started today in the low 60s and it was still slightly humid, but temperatures aren't really going to go anywhere today. 

Highs will stay in the 60s to around 70, held down by an overcast, cool northeasterly breezes and quite a few showers around. 

Those temperatures aren't all that odd for a summer cool spell, but they are pretty far below normal, considering highs are usually around 80 degrees this time of year. 

Most areas of Vermont got some badly needed rain overnight and early this morning. The exception, as usual, is extreme northern Vermont, especially the northern Champlain Valley. Luckily, that dry area got a good band of showers and thunderstorms Wednesday evening. 

Some rain will probably spread into the far north today, but they'll get less than the rest of Vermont. The National Weather Service in South Burlington says they're expecting a decent half inch to inch of rain in the Green Mountain State today, but something closer to a quarter inch up by St Albans and Newport and places up north like that. 

Any rain would be great in this continued dry year. We've been keeping tabs on the weekly U.S. Drought Monitor reports, which come out each Thursday.

Yesterday's report showed moderate drought which had been in eastern Vermont extending westward into parts of northwestern Vermont.  All but the far southwest corner of the Green Mountain State was at the very least abnormally dry, according to the report. 

It will take more than today's rain to solve this problem, but any rain is good rain at this point. 

Saturday stays cool, too, with scattered showers around. There might be peeks of sun, but with a cold pool of air aloft, there will be more than enough instability for showers, too. Most of us will stay in the 60s Saturday for the second day in a row. 

Sunday looks sunnier, and a bit warmer, but still cool for the season - temperatures will be in the low to mid 70s by then. 

The cool opening to this July is a big departure from recent Julys, which have been quite hot. In Burlington, Vermont, three of the top four hottest Julys were 2018, 2019 and 2020.

You shouldn't necessarily get used to the cool weather. There will be a brief squirt of hot air Tuesday before another cold front arrives.

But it's still unknown how much oomph that cold front will have, and any cool air that it brings looks to be pretty brief. Long range forecasts call for sustained very warm, humid weather to resume about a week from now. 

HURRICANE ELSA

Tropical Storm Elsa just got upgraded to a hurricane this morning as it battered Barbados this morning.

Elsa is the first hurricane of the young season and the first tropical storm of the season to really mean business.  It's also the first hurricane season to have a fifth tropical storm form this early. 

Hurricane Elsa, whether it's still a hurricane or a strong
tropical storm, poses a potential threat to 
Florida early next week 

All the previous tropical storms this season were minor, as is usually the case before August. 

The last one, Danny, was basically a glorified cluster of thunderstorms that got just windy and circular enough earlier this week to qualify as a tropical storm before splashing ashore in South Carolina without fanfare and dissipating. 

Elsa is another story. It formed in the eastern/central Atlantic, in a place where tropical storms and hurricanes don't normally form until August or later. The water there is usually too cool this early in the season and the atmosphere normally isn't right, either 

But things are topsy-turvy in the world and now we're dealing with Hurricane Elsa. 

Elsa became a tropical storm a couple days ago. It was the earliest This storm looks like it will become a threat to Hispaniola, and Cuba by the weekend, and maybe to Florida by early next week.  That's potentially really not good for those working on that condominium tower collapse in Surfside, Florida. 

Forecasting the future strength of tropical storms and hurricanes is always a challenge, and Elsa is no exception. Few anticipated it would become a hurricane by now. 

For what it's worth, depending upon whether the islands Elsa encounters disrupts its circulation, or whether the atmosphere remains good to maintain the storm, it's probably best to expect at least a strong tropical storm in or near Florida early next week.