There's a tropical storm watch today in frigid Newfoundland. Another tropical storm rose from the dead nearly a week after dissipating. Yet another one is pretty sitting and spinning over the same location, unleashing dangerous floods.
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| Gorgeous satellite view of the Northeast this morning. Big curved cloud shield is outer edge of Hurricane Teddy. Just west of that cloud shield over Vermont that got entrained in Teddy's circulation.Then there's a narrow band of smoke-free air in northeastern New York, with more smoke coming in behind it from the west. |
The weird tropical storm season of 2020 continues on. I'l also get to the fire danger in a bit, which is in part being caused by yes, a hurricane.
TROPICAL STORM BETA
I'll start with the relatively "least" weird one first. Tropical Storm Beta splashed ashore along the mid Texas coast last night. Maximum winds were estimated to be near 50 mph, and I think even that was generous.
The problem is Beta is stalling just inland, and is drawing feeder bands of torrential rain into the Texas coast and into southwestern Louisiana all day today and into tomorrow.
This location can NOT be worse than it is. Houston, still traumatized by the extreme Hurricane Harvey floods of 2017, is at a high risk of some substantial flash flooding today. It won't be as bad as Harvey, but that's not much comfort.
Three to six inches of rain has already fallen around Houston as of early this morning, and at least another four inches is due today. Flash flooding is already ongoing in the massive Houston area, and that is likely to get worse as the day goes on. Flood warnings are up for most area creeks and rivers. There are lingering storm surges along the coast, and that would limit the ability of creeks and bayous to drain into the Gulf of Mexico.
The torrential rains are likely to move into southwestern Louisiana which was totally wrecked by Hurricane Laura last month. Those tarps over destroyed roofs might not hold up to this much rain, adding to the wreckage of severely damaged houses. Renewed flooding will interfere with hurricane cleanup, and create added damage.
TROPICAL STORM PAULETTE
This one has risen from the dead. Over a week ago, Hurricane Paulette smacked Bermuda with 90 mph winds, then raced off to the North Atlantic Ocean to die in the cold waters up there.
Turns out Paulette is some kind of zombie. The remains of Paulette moved south into somewhat warmer waters kind of near the Azores. As of last night, it was reborn as a 60 mph tropical storm.
Paulette has turned east heading slowly toward southern Portugal, but will never get there. Cooler ocean water and high upper level winds should kill Paulette again over the next few days. However, there are some suggestions that its remains could turn on a dime and move westward again.
If the ghost of Paulette gets far enough west and loses the upper level winds, who knows? It could become a zombie storm again. That's unlikely, but the way this year is going, you never know.
HURRICANE TEDDY
Hurricane Teddy is gradually losing its tropical characteristics, but is still only half way through that process. When hurricanes do this, their areas of high winds expand. Teddy is moving north toward Nova Scotia and is expected to give them a pretty nasty blow later today, and the bad weather will move up toward Newfoundland tomorrow.
As of early this morning, Teddy still had top winds of 105 mph, and hurricane force winds extended as far as 100 miles from its center. That's a big area for a hurricane.
That set up is helping Tedday cause huge waves and elevated water levels along the Atlantic Coast from Newfoundland to Florida. Coastal flooding is ongoing up and down the East Coast, even as skies remain sunny well outside Teddy's core of clouds and rain.
New England is on the western edge of Teddy's expanding wind field, so breezy to gusty north winds will come through today, especially east of the Connecticut River.
New England is in a drought. The winds today, gusting to 30 mph or more in the eastern half of the region, could help spread any fires that start. So I guess we're getting a very mini version of what's been going on in the western United States for weeks now.
Red flag warnings that indicate fire danger are up for almost all of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and southwestern Maine.
Here in Vermont, the fire danger isn't quite as high because the wind will be lighter than areas to our east. However, the northerly breezes, low humidity and especially the very dry conditions from this month's lack of rain raises the risk of fires.
Note that smoke from western wildfires is getting caught up in Teddy's circulation, so we will be back to smoky skies overhead, especially this afternoon. We first started noticing this return to smoke overhead yesterday, ,and I think it might thicken up some this afternoon.
Some relief from the dry weather is possibly due later in the weekend and early next week. Two fairlky wet cold fronts, one Sunday night, the other Monday night and Tuesday, have the potential at least to give us some decent rains for once.
