As of 2pm east coast time Hurricane Earl was a couple of hundred miles off the coast of North Carolina. Its max sustained winds are around 125, which puts Earl in Category 3 status. While it has been moving westward for most of its life, it has begun to move north at 18 miles per hour. This means that it will not be in Asheville (though I never expected it to be, being 400 miles from the coast). While landfall is not expected, the western swath of the storm is projected to affect much of the Northeast:
Currently there are Hurricane Warnings for the North Carolina coast, as the storm will be passing by overnight tonight. Another concern could be a near landfall off of Cape Cod tomorrow night into Saturday morning. Because of that the Massachusetts coast, as well as Nantucket/Marthas Vineyard, is ALSO under a Hurricane warning.
Again, while landfall is not expected, it should still pack a punch, with winds up to 7o mph for some coastal areas and high seas. Even though the storm is expected to weaken (in fact it already has, being downgraded from a category 4 to category 3 at the 2pm discussion), it can still do some minor damage so be careful up there.
While tropical meteorology is a topic that doesn’t interest me greatly, it’s impact on coastal towns is too huge to avoid. The first hurricane of the season, Alex, is expected to make landfall overnight tonight. The latest 8am advisory places the hurricane in category 1 credentials, with a wind of 79 mph, gusts up to 98 mph, and a central pressure of 959 hPa.
The National Hurricane Center in Miami predicts that this system will reach category 2 strength before making landfall on the Mexican coast between 1 and 3am tomorrow morning. I agree with their thinking, since wind shear is low (between 5 and 10 knots) and high sea surface temps (around 30 degrees C)
While it is scheduled to make landfall in Mexico, parts of Texas will still feel the effects of this storm. More importantly though, the Texas coastline lies within the right front quadrant of the cyclone, so tornadoes are possible for the area. In fact, the Storm Prediction Center has placed the area under a slight risk for today.
Thanks to the awesome software of GRLevel 3 to show a very nice Base Reflectivity of Hurricane Dolly entering southern Texas. As of 1PM eastern this system has Max Sustained winds of 100mph and is moving WNW at 7mph (SOURCE: National Hurricane Center)
