Our First True Tropical Concern of the Season

Tropical Storm Irene was upgraded to Hurricane Irene early this morning.  Based on the current path over mostly warm water…there will be some interaction with the island of Hispaniola over the next day…the potential exists for this storm to strengthen as it gets closer to the Southeastern U.S.  But where is it headed?

The early morning track from the National Hurricane Center had, for early Saturday morning, a spread of anywhere form the Florida Gulf Coast to over the Atlantic off the Carolina coast.  They caution that errors in forecasting position of tropical systems that are still four to five days away can be as high as 200-250 miles on average.  Needless to day, there’s great uncertainty in where Irene will be.  Some of our computer guidance last night pointed to a landfall along the Georgia coast Saturday morning…this morning’s updates of those same forecast models shift that point instead to Myrtle Beach by later in the day Saturday.  The next round of models will probably move things around a little bit more.

Interaction with Hispaniola will have a say here.  If Irene misses land and stays stronger, it’s more likely to curve northward and possibly northeastward sooner, pushing any possible landfall farther north.  A weaker storm would stay moving westward longer, and Florida would be more at risk.

We’re not just talking about coastal impacts; we’re also talking about local impacts.  If Irene stays near and parallels the Carolina coast, our local weather impact may be minimal…we’ve had hurricanes go up the coast and our local weather has been dry and a little breezy.  If Irene hits the Georgia coast, we could be in for a lot of wind and rain…unless the storm moves more northeast than north after landfall, in which case we could get a glancing blow of both the wind and rain.  If Irene hits Florida, the storm could be in much weaker condition by the time the moisture gets our way, but some locally heavy rain and gusty squalls could still occur. 

The bottom line: there is a pretty high potential, but no guarantee just yet, that Irene will have an impact on parts of the Southeast or East sometime this weekend. However, it’s way too early to pinpoint who will see what.  It’s important to keep an eye on what’s going on and to raise your awareness level in our weather as the weekend approaches, but it’s too early to get caught up in the specific details over the next couple of days as they will likely change.  The evolution of this storm over the next 48 hours will be a critical factor, and our confidence in where Irene will head should grow…perhaps by a little, perhaps by a lot.

We'll keep you updated on-air and on-line (visit the Hurricane Center on our web site) on the track of Irene, and stay tuned to see if we'll see local impacts from this storm or if we'll just watch it pass on by...