Sally To Drown Gulf Coast; Elsewhere, Sunny Sept. Day Shrouded In Smoke

We'll start today with the dangerous first, then follow up with the sad and dismaying. I'm a bucket of cheer this morning aren't I?  

Satellite view of Hurricane Sally
Tuesday morning

So, Hurricane Sally continues its slow motion march toward the Gulf of Mexico. It's barely off the southeastern tip of Louisiana this morning, but it will take another 24 hours to make it to the coast, probably somewhere in or near Mississippi. 

Its forward speed is slower than most people can walk. 

That's why everybody is so worried about Hurricane Sally. Top winds are 85 mph, and not expected to weaken much before landfall. Which means this won't be the most powerful hurricane ever to hit the Gulf Coast, at least in terms of wind. 

The fact that the hurricane is almost sitting in one place is causing cooler water to upwell from deeper in the Gulf of Mexico.   The cooler water is helping to squelch the storm's development. Hurricanes thrive on very warm water.  Guesses are the winds with Sally are at their peak now and won't get much stronger. 

But the wind still isn't the problem with this one.  The slow movement of the storm will allow the storm surge to keep piling up along the Gulf Coast. On Monday, two days before Sally is set to make landfall, there was already some storm surge flooding. 

The biggest problem with Sally will be the rain, as has been advertised for days now. There was already a feeder band of torrential rain set up and slamming into the Gulf Coast in northwest Florida and southern Alabama. This rain band is soon to hit southern Mississippi. 

The Mobile, Alabama National Weather Service office, among others, is warning of historic flooding along and just inland from the Gulf.  Ten to 20 inches of rain is expected, with local amounts to 30 inches.  That is almost sure to cause record flooding along some rivers and low lying areas. 

There's a lot of other tropical systems in the Atlantic at the moment. This really busy hurricane season is peaking.  None of the systems, other than Sally, are an immediate threat to land, so I'll skip them for now. 

SMOKY SKIES ALMOST NATIONWIDE

Normally I love September mornings like this one.  It was almost chilly enough to frost at my place in St. Albans, Vermont. Some areas of Vermont did have frost. 

All that orange and red in this map 
represents a LOT of smoke aloft
across much of the nation. 

Usually, this type of weather has deep blue skies crystal clear visibility and a bright sun. 

Not this time.  The sky is a sick yellowish gray. The sunshine is a weak, sickly orange.  You see a little haze agains the mountains in the distance instead of the sharp outlines of the hills and mountains you usually see in this weather. 

This is all a thick plume of smoke coming from the massive western forest fires. This pall of smoke extends all the way across the nation, from California to Maine and well beyond. It's not just here. 

The bit of haze you see against the mountains is particulates from the smoke precipitating out. It's not enough to prompt air pollution alerts and it's not thick enough to be especially dangerous. But still.

I hate to complain, when people are losing their homes and even lives in these wildfires. But the smoky skies when we should have clear blue conditions makes me a little sad and angry, let me tell you. 

Climate change influenced these fires and made them worse than they otherwise would be. The smoke overhead is not dangerous to us Vermonters, but it does affect us. Just another example of how climate change will continue to make quality of life diminish. 

Sally Threat, Atlantic Tropics Busy As They Can Get And A Frosty Vermont

 I'll get to the incredibly busy swarm of tropical storms and hurricanes out in the Atlantic Ocean in just a sec, but here's a heads up for us Vermonters. 

As this map from the National Weather
Service in South Burlington shows,
low temperatures in Vermont will
be in the 30s tonight, with some upper
20s in the coldest hollows.

It's unfortunately time to start thinking about putting your gardens to bed for the fall.  At the very least, many of us should cover them up to protect them tonight. 

Frosts are coming to a fair number of towns in northern Vermont and New York tonight and early tomorrow morning. This one will be more widespread than the few scattered pockets we had Saturday. The chill will be deeper, too.

On Saturday. there were just a couple of frost advisories in the North East Kingdom and the Adirondacks.  And just a couple cold hollows actually got frost. 

Tonight, the Northeast Kingdom and Adirondacks are under a freeze warning, so that would be a crop killer in those areas unless you harvest today. It'll go below freezing there. 

A frost advisory is up for the rest of northern Vermont except the Champlain Valley. Remember, air temperature is usually measured five feet off the ground, but on clear, calm nights like what's expected tonight, the ground can be colder. 

So, if it's say, 35 degrees, you can still have a frost damaging your garden plants. 

Pretty much all of Vermont will be in the 30s by dawn tomorrow, except areas near Lake Champlain, which will stay up in the low to mid 40s. 

Even many valleys in southern Vermont could have a touch of frost. 

So take care of your plants!

It'll warm up a little during the rest of the week, but beware: Another cold shot is coming up late in the week and the weekend, and this one will be even chillier than the one we've got coming in now. Frost might be even more widespread in the weekend than it will be tonight. Even the Champlain Valley will be in play then.

Now on to much more dramatic weather:

HURRICANES AND TROPICAL STORM SWARM

As of early this morning, there were five, count 'em five, hurricanes, tropical storms or tropical depressions in the Atlantic. That ties a record set in September, 1971 for the most simultaneous such storms on record.  

An incredibly busy map of the Atlantic Ocean
with numerous tropical storms or things
that are close to tropical storms.

So far, only one of these storms is threatening the United States, but that one still looks like it will cause a lot of damage along the Gulf Coast. I'll take all these one at a time, in no particular order, except for the most dangerous one, Tropical Storm Sally

SALLY:

Tropical Storm Sally last night looked like it got more intense, but so far, the more vibrant thunderstorms that blossomed with the storm last night haven't translated all that much toward a more powerful storm. 

Sustained winds were 65 mph with Sally early this morning, up just a little from yesterday. But it was still expected to strengthen into a hurricane. 

Even if it doesn't, Tropical Storm Sally would still be a nasty beast for the Gulf Coast. It's forward motion is still quite slow, and it will probably slow down even more.  That gives the storm a big opportunity to create a huge storm surge along parts of the Gulf Coast.

The slow forward motion would give Sally a chance to dump a tremendous amount of rain on part of the Gulf Coast.  Some spot might get close to 20 inches of rain. 

There's also the possibility that Sally could abruptly strengthen today before it makes landfall sometime on Tuesday. 

The one glimmer of good news with Sally is the forecast track is a little east of what it was yesterday. That means impacts to New Orleans might be a little less.

PAULETTE:

Talk about finding a needle in a haystack! The island of Bermuda is just a 20-mile wide speck in the 2,000 mile wide Atlantic Ocean. Nevertheless, Hurricane Paulette was able to make a "perfect" track so the eye of the storm went right over Bermuda this morning. 

Paulette had top winds of 90 mph when it hit.  I haven't heard many reports on how Bermuda is faring with such a direct hit, but the island is pretty resilient and well-prepared for hurricanes, so that's good news. 

Hurricane Paulette will strengthen for a time as it heads northeastward away from Bermuda. It will eventually weaken in the cold waters of the North Atlantic in a few days.  This storm is no threat to the United States, aside from rip currents on East Coast beaches.

TROPICAL DEPRESSION RENE

Rene was a tropical storm for awhile, but weakened to a depression as it struggled with strong upper level winds. It was barely hanging on as a depression this morning as there are a few thunderstorms around it.  As of 11 a.m Rene was pretty much gone. Yawn. 

TROPICAL STORM TEDDY

Teddy blossomed into a tropical storm last night. It's still in its formative stages way out in the Atlantic Ocean with top winds of just 40 mph.  

The bad news is Teddy is expected to become a major hurricane with top winds of 115 mph once it reaches the central Atlantic well southeast of Bermuda. The very good news is that Teddy is no immediate threat to land, and stands a very good chance of staying out to sea away from populated areas. 

TROPICAL DEPRESSION #21

This little thing formed overnight off the west coast of Africa. It was upgraded to Tropical Storm Vicku late this morning, but it is not expected to last long.  Vicky will get blasted by strong upper level winds. Don't worry about this one. 

Another disturbance just emerged into the Atlantic Ocean from Africa. This one stands a good chance of becoming a tropical storm eventually.   

Sally Now A Big Hurricane Threat To Gulf Coast

Tropical Storm Sally was gaining steam in the Gulf of Mexico this morning, and it's now becoming a huge, dangerous threat to the central Gulf Coast, including beleaguered New Orleans.  

Visible satellite image Sunday morning of
Tropical Storm Sally developing in
the eastern Gulf of Mexico (white blob
on right hand side of photo).

Nobody is sure exactly how strong Sally will get, but on satellite images, it has "that look" that often is the way a tropical system appears as its first developing. Tropical Storm Sally had top winds of only 50 mph early this morning, so that's not the biggest deal. The problem is that Sally is all but guaranteed to strengthen. Probably a lot. 

It looks like Sally will take a somewhat similar path as the Hurricane Katrina did in 2005 as it all but destroyed Louisiana.  At this point, I don't think, or at least I hope, it won't get as bad as Katrina, but it's still a big threat. 

The only thing really working against Sally was a little bit of strong-ish winds aloft, which were slightly interfering with the storm's organization as of Sunday morning. It looks like those upper level winds might diminish some later today. 

If Sally develops a very strong inner core, it could really blow up. We'll have to watch and see.  Regardless of what happens, it already seems like Sally will create a lot of danger and damage. 

First, it will probably be a hurricane at landfall. At this point, the prediction is for a Category 2 storm with top winds of around 100 mph.

A bigger problem is the storm surge.  Early forecasts indicate it could go to six to nine feet above normal sea level.  That'll really hit vulnerable low lying areas, including possibly New Orleans and surrounding areas.  

Forecasts for Sally's predicted path shifted westward overnight toward New Orleans. 

Worse, Sally's forward speed is expected to be quite slow as it nears the coast.  A slow moving hurricane has more time to build up a bigger, worse storm surge. 

Along with that, torrential rains will linger for a long time, as compared to a hurricane which blast right through, in and out in less than a day. 

A slow moving storm would dump tremendous amounts of rain, causing flooding just inland. Then that water flowing toward the coast would get blocked by the storm surge coming in. The water would have nowhere to go except into neighborhoods just inland from the coast. 

As an example of how wet this thing already is, parts of the Florida Keys received nearly a foot of rain from Sally on Saturday. 

There will inevitably be adjustments and changes to the forecast regarding Sally.  It already appears cast in stone, however, that a part of the United States is about to get creamed by a nasty, destructive weather event. 

Peak Of Hurricane Season And It's REALLY Busy Out There

 They told us months ago that this would be a very busy hurricane season and they weren't kidding!

Atlantic tropical storms and hurricanes go in alphabetical order and we're just getting ready to get the "S" storm, which will be named Sally.  They're almost out of letters, so they'll have to go to the Greek alphabet soon.  That's only happened once before, in the extreme hurricane season of 2005. 

LOTS of tropical storm type stuff to
watch in the Atlantic Ocean, as this
morning's National Hurricane Center
map attests

It just so happens that the likely next "S" storm, wannabe Sally, is the most immediate threat to the United States. All the other systems out there in the Atlantic Ocean are either going to miss us, or they are so distant nobody knows where they will end up in a week or so.

Let's get into Wannabe Sally, which was over the southern tip of Florida early this morning. 

It hasn't quite gotten up to tropical storm strength yet, so as of this writing it had the unsexy name Tropical Depression 19. I'm still going to call it Wannabe Sally until it gets strong enough to officially get that name. That threshold should be reached later today or tonight. 

Wannabe Sally will move westward and hit the very toasty waters of the Gulf of Mexico later today.  From there, it will move slowly northwestward across the Gulf until it hits somewhere maybe in Louisiana, or Mississippi or nearby Tuesday or Wednesday. 

Wannabe Sally will probably gradually strengthen all the way to landfall and it could become a hurricane by the time it reaches land.

The biggest risk from Wannabe Sally, so far at least, is its forward motion is quite slow. And it will be close enough to the Gulf Coast to dump heavy rain well before it reaches land. 

This sets the stage for a lot of flooding.  Slow moving tropical systems have caused some extreme flooding in recent years, Hurricane Harvey in Texas in 2017 being the most glaring example. 

I'm not saying this will be as extreme as Harvey, but the Gulf Coast will want to watch out for what could be a big flood event midweek. Stay tuned!

If this heavy rain gets into southwestern Louisiana, it would be really bad.  That area was completely trashed by Hurricane Laura a couple weeks back. Plus all that water left behind by Laura has triggered a mosquito outbreak that's so bad that the bugs are literally killing livestock by sucking too much blood out of them.

A foot or two of rain from Wannabe Sally in southwestern Louisiana wouldn't exactly help, would it?

Like I said, there's lots of other tropical stuff out there to keep track of. Here's a rundown:

Tropical Storm Paulette.

Paulette is forecast to strengthen into a hurricane later today and is threatening Bermuda. 

This storm is way out in the central Atlantic Ocean and is moving northwestward toward Bermuda. It should be very close to that island late Sunday night or Monday as quite a strong hurricane, so they'll have to watch out for that. 

After hitting or nearly hitting Bermuda, Paulette will turn northeastward and head off into the North Atlantic, missing the United States by a very wide margin.

Tropical Storm Rene

Rene is puttering around way out in the Atlantic, weak, disorganized and unsure where to go. For the next week or so at least, it's no threat to anybody.  I suppose Rene could eventually get its act together and go somewhere and strengthen, but that's not in the cars for the next several days, if ever.

There's a decent chance that Rene could just dissipate

Another Disturbance

Another collection of showers and storms came off the west coast of Africa and into the Atlantic Ocean a couple days ago. It is almost certain to become a tropical storm or even hurricane.  It's a long way from land.  Nobody knows yet if this one will curve northward harmlessly away from land, or target the Caribbean or even the United States. So don't worry about this one, at least not yet.

Elsewhere:

Following the footsteps of  "another disturbance" I just referenced, this one just came off the coast of  Africa. Not sure what, if anything this will do.

In the western Gulf of Mexico, there's yet another disturbance well west of Wannabe Sally. I wouldn't worry about this one, at least for now.