MyFoxHurricane.com blog

Earl Eyes East Coast

Posted by Andy Johnson under Daily updates

Now that Danielle is extratropical all attention is being focused on major Hurricane Earl. Hurricane watches were issued at 5PM Tuesday from north of Surf City, NC to the North Carolina/Virginia border and tropical storm watches have been issued from Cape Fear,NC to Surf City, NC.

On Tuesday afternoon, Earl has pulled away from the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Conditions have improved rapidly over the northern Leeward Islands and the Virgin Islands but it is still a windy day in Puerto Rico. There are lots of trees and power lines down in St. Thomas and air travel is being impacted. St. Croix fared better since it is further south away from the center of the hurricane.

Unfortunately, just as Earl is pulling away from the Leeward Islands, Tropical Storm Fiona is approaching them. As a result, as of 1PM on Tuesday, August 31, 2010, Tropical storm warnings are in effect once again for St. Martin and St. Barthélemy and tropical storm watches are in effect for Antigua, Barbuda, Monterrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, St. Marteen, Saba and St. Eustatius. Anguilla is just recovering from hurricane force gusts experienced Monday due to Hurricane Earl. It is amazing in just a few days apart, the northern Leewward could be affected by two seperate storms.

Hurricane Earl could impact travel during the upcoming Labor Day weekend. Many people will begin their travel on Friday, when Earl will be near or  just off the eastern seaboard. Anyone who lives from North Carolina to the Nova Scotia or has any plans to travel to those areas, should very closely monitor the path of Earl. You should not focus on the thin line that shows the forecast track of Earl!  Look at the cone of uncertainty. If you are in the cone of uncertainty, there is a chance of Earl passing directly over you. The forecasting problem with Earl is that he will be in the process of recurving just at the point in time where he is passing close to large population centers along the Eastern Seaboard. Any deviation to the left(west) or right (east) of the forecast path will have huge implications to many people. If Earl stays at sea, the area from coastal North Carolina to Nova Scotia will have a 12 to 24 hour period of gusty northeast gale force winds or maybe even lighter winds. If Earl makes landfall in the Outer Banks they will be directly affected with hurricane force winds. The same reasoning exists for New England and Nova Scotia, if the eye passes directly over Cape Cod or near Halifax hurricane force winds will hit. Since forecast errors at 4 and 5 days are significant, it is just too early to say exactly where Earl will be in that time frame. Since the path of Earl will generally be paralleling the U.S. East coast, any deviation left or right will have a huge difference in where Earl makes landfall. The best advice is to be prepared and follow Earl closely until it passes your latitude.

Hurricane force winds may only extend 25 miles in the southwest quadrant of Earl as he passes near the East Coast as opposed to 60 miles in the northeast quadrant. So, the width of hurricane force winds is narrow and the consequences great. If Earl is 100 miles offshore, the affects will obviously be much more minimal than if he is 10 miles offshore.

The satellite picture below shows the circulation Earl in the center and Fiona approaching on the right. Winds at 12:45 PM EDT, August 31, 2010 were SW sustained at 20 MPH with gusts to 24 MPH on the western shore of Puerto Rico. The water temperature is still warm at 83 even with all of the recent wave action.

 A bouy east of Earl (shown by the arrow in the image below) was reporting a sustained wind of 34 MPH with gusts to 45 MPH at 12:45 PM EDT. Wave heights were 23 feet.

The image below shows the flight path of Air Force flight 309. The vortex message taken at 9:42 AM EDT, August 31, showed an incredibly strong storm with a maximim flight level wind of 140.4 MPH. Maximum surface winds were reported at the surface were 125.4 MPH. Note that the Air Force also reported a circular but that it was open in the SW quadrant,which is usually the weakest quadrant. If Earl remains offshore of the east coast of the U.S. the weaker southwest quadrant would be on the landward side of the hurricane.

Another buoy northwest of Earl (and in the path of Earl) was reporting sustained winds of 31 MPH with gusts to 38 MPH with waves of 17 feet and a water temperature of 85°.

The radar presentation from San Juan today was not as impressive since the eye has now moved closer t0 the outer range of the radar due to the curvature of the earth. There are still squalls that are affecting Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic. It looks like the worst weather will lift north of Haiti with only moderate convection tonight and Wednesday.

 Even though Earl remains at Category 4 strength the eye is not clearly seen in high resolution satellite imagery shown below from our McIDAS system. This is partly due to eyewall replacement cycles which will be occurring over the next few days leading to fluctations in intensity.

The enhanced satellite image below is able to pick out an eye even through the cirrus overcast.

 Wave heights will be increasing from Florida to Maine to Nova Scotia over the next 2 to 5 days as large swells emanate from Earl. The graphic below shows buoy heights on Tuesday afternoon.

The Turks and Caicos Islands should be spared a direct hit by Earl but they are under tropical storm warnings. The Turks and Caicos Islands are not volanic like most of the Leeward Islands so the land is mostly flat.

I took the picture below in 2008 at the cruise ship entrance to Grand Turk.

The picture I took below shows how the island is mostly flat with lagoons and does not have the elevations that the Caribbean Islands have.

As of Tuesday afternoon (as shown below), the NOGAP model shows the track of Earl further to the west and the Canadian model (CMC) is the easternmost outlier.

Fiona will be right behind Earl but the tracks shown below are still expecting Fiona to be weaker in the shadow of Earl and she should remain further east.

Use caution in the gaphics below. These are forecasts made 4 to 5 days in advance and there could be changes. Keep up to date with the latest information. The graphic shows the NHC forecast for Noon, Friday. The yellow shaded area is the cone of uncertainty. The orange area is the expected area of gale force winds and the red area is storm force winds. Remember, though, that any change to the left or right could make a big difference in wind speed.

The image below is the forecast wind field for Friday night with the same color scheme as in the graphic above.

If Earl and Fiona were not enough, we are also following Invest 98L and a new tropical wave emerging off of Africa.