Ophelia Makes Landfall In North Carolina, Almost At Hurricane Strength

Satellite view of Tropical Storm Ophelia shortly after
it made landfall in North Carolina early this morning.
Center of Ophelia is in lower left of photo. It was
already sending high clouds all the way into southern Quebec.

Tropical Storm Ophelia almost made it to hurricane force before making landfall at 6:15 this morning at Emerald Island, North Carolina. It had top sustained winds of 70 mph,  just 4 mph shy of hurricane strength. 

That fact that Ophelia wasn't quite a hurricane at landfall doesn't matter much to the people living in eastern North Carolina and Virginia. 

It's still nasty, and a bit dangerous in this storm. Cape Lookout, North Carolina had sustained winds at 61 mph with gusts to 73 mph earlier this morning. 

At least 50,000 people were without electricity this morning in North Carolina and Virginia as of early this morning and that number is expected to grow.  

Coastal flooding isn't too extreme, but it is widespread. Coastal flood warnings extend from North Carolina all the way up to Long Island, New York. 

It no longer takes that much of a storm to cause coastal inundations because sea levels have risen due to climate change. 

Moisture from Ophelia raises the risk of inland flooding from North Carolina all the way up the coast to Connecticut.

Ophelia will gradually weaken and eventually turn into a fairly lame, non tropical storm somewhere near Delaware by Sunday night. 

The remnants of Ophelia could drift off the coast eventually and perhaps regenerate a bit over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, we'll see.

VERMONT EFFECTS

Well, we're certainly escaping much trouble from Ophelia here in the Green Mountain State, expect maybe in far southern Vermont. They will have a spell of rather unpleasant, but definitely not dangerous weather. 

Clouds and showers from moisture thrown north by Ophelia will keep far southern Vermont damp and chilly. In many towns in Bennington and Windham counties, highs today and tomorrow could stay in the 50s. 

Those clouds from Ophelia will make it all the way to the  Canadian border and beyond. But the further north you go in Vermont today and tomorrow, the higher and thinner the clouds.  That will allow some sun to come through, and it will be mild enough.

The clouds and possible sprinkles as far north as Route 4 will keep daytime temperatures both days this weekend in the mid 60s in central Vermont. 

By the time you get to Route 2 and north, highs both today and tomorrow will be well into the 60s to around 70.

The veil of high clouds over northern areas this weekend puts us at risk, for the lack of a better word of another round of gorgous sunsets this weekend. 

Beyond that, we get our biggest break of the year in terms of weather. Rainfall has become somewhere more infrequent in Vermont this month, at least compared to the constant deluges from mid-June through August.

Strong high pressure is still expected to stall mostly in Quebec starting Monday.  That means it appears we'll have generally sunny, mild days and cool nights with patchy fog daily Monday through possibly all the way to next Saturday. 

We'll get either no or extremely little rain. You might have to water late season plants. But things overall are so wet in the ground that a week of rainless weather won't harm anything. 

Get out and enjoy the great weather next week! 

Will Tropical Storm Ophelia Cause North Carolina Havoc And Mess With New England Weekend?

UPDATE 2 PM FRIDAY

Satellite view this morning of what is probably going
to become Tropical Storm Ophelia off the southeastern
United States coast. 

As expected and as I wrote about this morning, the mess of storm off the 

Southeast U.S. coast got better organized this morning and became a true tropical storm, instead of some weird hybrid.

As of 2 p.m. now-Tropical Storm Ophelia was centered about 150 miles southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina and moving a little west of north. 

Top winds have increased since this morning to 60 mph.  It's still expected to come ashore in North Carolina probably early Saturday.

To become a hurricane, Ophelia would have to stay over open water for awhile.

That could happen, but it doesn't have a lot of time left before it comes ashore, so chances are it won't become quite a full fledged hurricane. 

But you ever know, 

Ophelia does look much better organized and much more like a tropical storm on satellite pictures than it was when the photo in this post was taken early this morning. Most of the systems thunderstorms are still to its north, but it now has a well-defined central, swirling core, like what you'd normally see with a tropical storm.

PREVIOUS DISCUSSION FROM THIS MORNING

That weird storm off the coast of Florida I mentioned yesterday is slowly developing into what forecasters think will turn into Tropical Storm Ophelia. 

Or maybe Phillippe if a cluster of thunderstorms off the coast of Africa can get its act together and turns into a tropical storm before the thing off the Southeast Coast manages to do the same. 

For now, we'll call the one we're worried about more Wannabe Ophelia. 

I've been calling it a weird storm because it started as a regular storm and is beginning to transition into one that is more of a tropical storm. For the record, during the transition, a storm like this is called a subtropical storm. 

A regular storm forms near the boundary of warm humid air to the south and cooler air to the north. This type of storm usually has a warm and a cold front, and doesn't have a nice circular shape like most tropical storms and hurricanes. 

That's how Wannabe Ophelia started. But now, strong thunderstorms are trying to get going, so far mostly north of the storm's center.  A tropical storm usually starts as a cluster of thunderstorms over warm water, which is what this thing is trying to do. It's also trying to become more independent from the warm and cold fronts near it. 

The thinking is the cold and warm fronts with the storm will eventually fade and this will become a subtropical or tropical storm. 

All of this technical and really won't matter to the  people who will be hit by the storm. Whatever you want to call Wannabe Ophelia, it was getting stronger this morning with top winds of 50 mph. 

More strengthening is possible as it moves north and it's forecast to hit eastern North Carolina by Saturday. The storm is already causing heavy rain and the risk of flooding in eastern North Carolina. 

It'll have all the characteristics of a strong tropical storm, with gusty, possibly damaging winds, flooding rains, and storm surges.  

THEN WHAT?

Once Wannabe Ophelia hits land, and if it's a tropical storm by then, it will start to transition back again to a regular, but very wet storm.  The question for us in Vermont is how far north will it get?

It's pretty safe to say Wannabe Ophelia will have enough oomph to cause some flooding in the Mid-Atlantic states. After that, strong high pressure in Quebec will want to shove this thing east out to sea.

But will Wannabe Ophelia be able to push rain into Vermont before it gets shunted off and away from New England?

The computer models aren't sure. It's becoming more and more likely that it will rain in southern Vermont this weekend because of Wannabe Ophelia. Nobody is sure, though, how far north the rain will get. 

It could be a pleasant, dry weekend in northern Vermont, or it could be a cool, cloudy one with maybe some light rain.  Two very different options here. 

No matter what, it looks like a pretty safe bet that if Wannabe Ophelia does make it rain in Vermont, it won't be enough to renew any flooding worries.