Wednesday, September 05, 2007

Watching the Tropics Today

Big surprise... hot and dry again today. The only system that may be able to break us out of this dry weather pattern over the next 5 to 7 days is an area of low pressure off the southeast coast today.
This disturbance formed along an old frontal boundary that moved off the southeast coast at the end of last week. As the disturbance interacts with warm ocean waters, I expect it to become a tropical depression by this afternoon or tomorrow. The National Hurricane Center has a hurricane hunter aircraft scheduled to check out the system this afternoon.

This area of low pressure has been drifting to the east over the last couple of days and will probably move erratically today and tomorrow. However, it should begin to move back to the west late Thursday and Friday. That will bring it closer to the North Carolina coast. At that point, conditions will be favorable for this to continue to strengthen into a tropical depression, and a hurricane is a possibility.

How close will this come to the coast? That remains to be seen. Some computer models bring it inland over North Carolina. Soaking rains from a weak tropical system would we a welcomed sight. However, other models keep the storm off the coast keeping the rain well to our east.

We'll continue to watch this system over the next couple of days, and should have a better idea exactly where it may head as we get closer to the weekend. Stay tuned to Weather on the Ones on News 14 Carolina for the latest.

2 comments:

Mayden' s Voyage said...

I'll be keeping my fingers crossed for cooler weather- and lots of rain!

Lee Ringer said...

I'm doing the same here! I think a lot of folks will welcome some rain even if it comes over the weekend. Looks like we're still in a wait and see pattern though until this storm can really get developed. As we like to say a lot, stay tuned!