Sunday Forecast

122 Comments

8:25AM

DAYS 1-5 (SEPTEMBER 1-5)
Welcome to September, and a blog update that is essentially identical to the one written on the final day of August, because everything to me looks the same as it did yesterday. High pressure to the north sends cooler northeast winds into the region today with fair weather. A warm front brings a threat of some wet weather mainly later Monday, then the feel of summer returns Tuesday-Wednesday. A cold front passes by Wednesday night and settles to the south of the region by Thursday, which is the first of 2 days we’ll have to watch for indirect and a much lower risk of more direct impact from Dorian after it finishes a sweeping turn along the US Southeast Coast (center staying just offshore except possibly NC briefly as it stands now). At this point I think we’d just be seeing cloudiness move in during the day Thursday.
Forecast details…
TODAY: Mostly sunny. Highs 70-77, coolest coast. Wind NE 5-10 MPH.
TONIGHT: Increasing clouds. Lows 55-62. Wind E under 10 MPH.
MONDAY (LABOR DAY): Variably cloudy. Afternoon showers possible favoring central MA and southwestern NH. Highs 71-78. Wind SE up to 10 MPH.
MONDAY NIGHT: Mostly cloudy with showers likely evening. Partly cloudy with patchy fog overnight. Humid. Lows 61-68. Wind S up to 10 MPH.
TUESDAY: Partly cloudy. Humid. Highs 82-89 except cooler South Coast / Cape Cod. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.
TUESDAY NIGHT: Partly cloudy. Humid. Lows 63-70. Wind SW 5-15 MPH.
WEDNESDAY: Partly cloudy. Humid. A late-day shower or thunderstorm possible mainly north and west of Boston. Highs 83-90 except cooler South Coast / Cape Cod. Wind SW 10-20 MPH.
WEDNESDAY NIGHT: Variably cloudy with showers and thunderstorms possible evening. Partly cloudy with patchy fog overnight. Humid. Lows 60-67. Wind SW 5-15 MPH with higher gusts shifting to W.
THURSDAY: Partly sunny morning. Mostly cloudy afternoon. Less humid. Highs 70-77. Wind N 5-15 MPH.

DAYS 6-10 (SEPTEMBER 6-10)
September 6 would be the most likely day to be impacted by any rainfall from the passage of Dorian offshore. A New England landfall is highly unlikely. The storm may be far enough offshore that much of the rain remains over the ocean as well. Will monitor the progress. Of more certainty is large ocean swells and rough surf affecting both the southern and eastern shores of southern New England September 6 into the September 7-8 weekend before settling down. The weekend weather is likely to be pleasant, seasonably cool to mild and dry. Mainly fair weather and ocean-modified seasonably cool air will be around September 9-10 with high pressure centered north to northeast of the region.

DAYS 11-15 (SEPTEMBER 11-15)
High pressure sinks to the south over the Atlantic and a southerly to westerly flow develops for much of this period with a northward-displaced jet stream. This is a mainly fair and above normal temperature pattern for this area, and if it came to fruition would bring some very nice weather for the dwindling days of summer, pre-equinox, which would be just over a week away by the end of this period.

122 thoughts on “Sunday Forecast”

        1. With climate changing and sea levels rising, Charleston is one of the areas along the eastern seaboard that is at highest risk. We are not far behind.

  3. TK, thank you.

    Trivia Quiz (which I got wrong).

    1) Hurricane names are reused every 6 years. “Arlene” has been the most repeated name. How many times has it been used?

    A. 7
    B. 9
    C. 11
    D. 15

    Answer later after I BBQ my rib-eye steak and have my Cabernet.

  8. This trivia question is a good one for Jeopardy! I was so happy to hear the news last week that Alex Trebek is done with chemo. Taping has already began for season 36 and the season premiere is next Monday September 9th.

    1. I hadn’t heard that. I know this is typically the time for repeats, but I was worrying. Thank you for the great news, JJ

          1. That is amazing. Alex is a VERY lucky man with those stats. It seems almost every year he has had some type of health issue, although nothing nearly as potentially fatal.

            It will be interesting how James Holzhauser does during the Championship Tournament later this upcoming season.

  11. Dorian has become a cousin to Andrew, structurally. Thankfully this won’t be the case, path-wise, with regard to Florida.

    1. He’s gotta land “somewhere” though. I can’t picture him just going “poof” out in the middle of the ocean given his intensity.

  12. Dorian has entered elite status this morning, among the most powerful tropical cyclones ever observed. Winds now sustained at 175mph, gusting over 200mph.

    2. Did you notice that many of those elite cyclones (Atlantic, Pacific, Indian Ocean) are also very tiny storms? Fascinating heat engines.

  13. Thank you, TK.

    Bahamas will get walloped. My thoughts go out to those in Dorian’s path. Category 5 is really, really serious.

    I liked a brief article from yesterday’s Wall Street Journal on the origins of meteorology. I cut and pasted it:

    Modern instruments made accurate forecasting possible, but humans have tried to predict the weather for thousands of years.

    By Amanda Foreman

    Labor Day weekend places special demands on meteorologists, even when there’s not a hurricane like Dorian on the way. September weather is notoriously variable: In 1974, Labor Day in Iowa was a chilly 43 degrees, while the following year it was a baking 103.

    Humanity has always sought ways to predict the weather. The invention of writing during the 4th millennium B.C. was an important turning point for forecasting: It allowed the ancient Egyptians to create the first weather records, using them as a guide to predict the annual flood level of the Nile. Too high meant crop failures, too low meant drought.

    Some early cultures, such as the ancient Greeks and the Mayans, based their weather predictions on the movements of the stars. Others relied on atmospheric signs and natural phenomena. One of the oldest religious texts in Indian literature, the Chandogya Upanishad from the 8th century B.C., includes observations on various types of rain clouds. In China, artists during the Han Dynasty (206 B.C.-9 A.D.) painted “cloud charts” on silk for use as weather guides.

    These early forecasting attempts weren’t simply products of magical thinking. The ancient adage “red sky at night, shepherd’s delight,” which Jesus mentions in the gospel of Matthew, is backed by hard science: The sky appears red when a high-pressure front moves in from the west, driving the clouds away.

    In the 4th century B.C., Aristotle tried to provide rational explanations for weather phenomena in his treatise Meteorologica. His use of scientific method laid the foundations for modern meteorology. The problem was that nothing could be built on Aristotle’s ideas until the invention of such tools as the thermometer (an early version was produced by Galileo in 1593) and the barometer (invented by his pupil Torricelli in 1643).

    Such instruments couldn’t predict anything on their own, but they made possible accurate daily weather observations. Realizing this, Thomas Jefferson, a pioneer in modern weather forecasting, ordered Meriwether Lewis and William Clark to keep meticulous weather records during their 1804-06 expedition to the American West. He also made his own records wherever he resided, writing in his meteorological diary, “My method is to make two observations a day.”

    Most governments, however, remained dismissive of weather forecasting until World War I. Suddenly, knowing which way the wind would blow tomorrow meant the difference between gassing your own side or the enemy’s.

    To make accurate predictions, meteorologists needed a mathematical model that could combine different types of data into a single forecast. The first attempt, by the English mathematician Lewis Fry Richardson in 1917, took six weeks to calculate and turned out to be completely wrong.

    There were still doubts about the accuracy of weather forecasting when the Allied meteorological team told Supreme Commander Dwight Eisenhower that there was only one window of opportunity for a Normandy landing: June 6, 1944. Despite his misgivings, Eisenhower acted on the information, surprising German meteorologists who had predicted that storms would continue in the English Channel until mid-June.

    As we all know, meteorologists still occasionally make the wrong predictions. That’s when the old proverb comes into play: “There is no such thing as bad weather, only inappropriate clothes.”

    3. Love this Joshua – I didn’t know the history. Fascinating! As I read this I was thinking that in his “copious free time” (Tom Lehrer reference) TK should work on writing up and publishing his weather observation notebooks. I’ll bet if written up well they would be absolutely fascinating to read both for weather enthusiasts but also for long time NE residents. Lots of memories there!

  14. One of the theories behind the most powerful cyclones often being the smaller ones is because they can almost make themselves hidden from negative impacts in the atmosphere. It’s almost like balling up to minimize the size of the target. Andrew is the most obvious example. You could fit the entirety of Hurricane Andrew (1992) inside the eye of Hurricane Gilbert (1988), at its maximum width.

  18. One thing I noticed yesterday on satellite was, even though strong, the storm didn’t look symmetric. Looked like the central dense overcast was 30% to the left of the eye and 70% to the right of the eye.

    Not today, much more centered. Looks like it’s breathing aloft all around the entire cyclone.

  19. Before I disconnect from the park’s wifi at the office …. any concerns that there could be a decent pressure gradient and a resulting SE mass wind event that could occur from a well offshore pass of Dorian and a high pressure situated north of New England ?

  21. The northern part of Abaco Island is going to get absolutely blown off the map. Fortunately it is more of a sparsely populated island. Freeport is in trouble too… only saving grace is that the eye of Dorian should pass to its north putting it on the “weaker” side of the circulation and hopefully outside the eye wall.

      1. Spectacular. My son, GF and grandson are hiking and camping in VT but o think too far south. I’d sure love to see these some day

  23. Poor Tropical Tidbits. That site has become pretty much useless. Wonder if they are not able to get server work done. It’s been over a month now, and it basically grinds to a halt when a lot of weather is happening. Not even using it anymore. Just checking it once in a while to see if anything’s changed for the better. Unfortunately the answer is no.

  24. Baxter State Park yesterday was spectacular as well despite some cloudiness at times. Hiked Mount Coe and had a great view of Katahdin. Windy and chilly up there with temps in the 50s…

    Katahdin from Coe:

    https://i.postimg.cc/YSRWP9qQ/84768-FF5-3546-47-F1-B87-E-3-F5-A6-E9-E4-C9-C.jpg

    And looking south at Doubletop Mountain:

    https://i.postimg.cc/2j74Jr2k/A4-E3-FDDA-6-A76-46-FD-905-A-499-BBB65-B468.jpg

    And lastly hiking north off the summit of Coe towards North and South Brother mountains:

    https://i.postimg.cc/6QFDDd6v/AA18403-D-4-D34-4-BD9-BC85-81-BFFD65-B2-B3.jpg

    We only passed a few hikers all day . Most of Baxter is very desolate and all the trailheads have limited parking. There is no cell service. If you want to truly get away and escape civilization, this is the place to go!

  25. The reason I put 90 as the top # in my forecast temperature range for Wednesday has to do with the subsidence away from the hurricane, the sinking air heating up coming down slopes of the mountains in the Southeast, which then is transported northeastward ahead of the cold front trailing the system coming through the Great Lakes. Figured I’d just explain why that is the case. Does anyone reach 90 that day? Maybe. Maybe not. That’s why we use ranges. 😉

  28. Levi Cowan
    @TropicalTidbits
    ·
    1h
    Most recent dropsonde in #Dorian’s eye has a “V” signature that indicates sinking air almost all the way to the ocean surface. This is an extreme signature, and very rare

    1. Just listened to emergency folks in Port St Lucie. They have set mandatory evacuation for tomorrow of barrier islands, some of their low lying areas, senior facilities.

  30. Gusts to 220mph now. It’s basically a giant EF4 tornado buzzsawing through Abaco for several hours and slowing down to a crawl as it does so. Catastrophic.

  31. Good afternoon, everyone. Happy Meteorological Autumn! It is a beautiful day today.

    Thank you so much, TK…I hope you’re feeling much better.

    I apologize for my tardiness, but I want to thank you and Mark for your great explanation about the differences in forecast models. You’re both super teachers.
    You’re both welcome to sub for my classes ANY time! How about Tuesday???? 🙂

    Mark, I hope you had a great time at your wedding…

    Longshot, thanks as always for your trivia. I am trying hard not to google. I am trying to figure out when tropical cyclones were first given first names. They were all women’s names at one point and then were rotated with men’s names, and then rotated in six-year cycles. I don’t remember the years that things changed.
    I will go low with A.

    Dorian is taking my breath away. I pray for everyone’s safety.

    1. Mark and TK…sorry for the confusion with my questions about ensemble models. I posted my question on Thursday and I didn’t see your response there until Friday. If I had known, I wouldn’t have asked the question again. Very busy days.

      1. No biggie, I posted my response after you asked the question the second time. I missed TKs response as well.

  32. Based on Longshot’s trivia last Sunday, I did some research on the local hurricanes from 1954 and 1955.

    My grandparents had a summer cottage in Onset. I remember my Grandma telling me about a baby being swept away in a hurricane. I always thought it was lore or a wives’ tale. Sadly, it was true. 65 years ago yesterday, August 31, 1954, Hurricane Carol slammed into southern New England.

    The baby was swept out of mom’s arms when families were taking shelter on the second floor of a home on Onset Island.

    Here’s an article:

    http://www.newenglandhistoricalsociety.com/hurricane-carol-deadly-name-retired/

    There was a Hurricane Carol in both 1953 AND 1954. The 1954 Hurricane Carol was the first hurricane to have her name retired because of the severity of the storm. The retirement of the name did not occur for another decade after the storm.

    1. I remember hurricane Carol. It blew over the steeple of our church, St. Catherine’s. A crappy replacement steeple still stands today. Well, it may have been Edna that took it down and if so it was surely weakened by Carol.

    2. Carol,was the one I often mention here but I can get it confused with one other. We did have a fair amount back then. We had to be rescued from the cottage we had rented in Humarock

      Interesting aside. My mom didn’t drive and my dad left for work in Boston as always that morning. They knew there was a hurricane. His words to her were not to worry because he heard it was in NC so he’d be back from work before it arrived. Near as my five year old memory can recall, a family friend who lived on the mainland side of the north river came to get us in the morning.

    3. When I worked with the MA State Climatologist he was displeased that the names were repeated in consecutive years at that time.

  33. Thanks Captain! I have been torn as to whether I was suffering prolonged allergies (which is rare for me now) or a cold virus. I believe it was the latter, but may have been a combo of the 2. I don’t get nailed with allergies all season like I did as a kid, when I needed medication on a regular basis and weekly allergy shots, but I can get a spike around the beginning of pollen and weed seasons, especially weed season. But given the amount of body aches I had, and lethargy at times, I think that was a cold virus with coincidental timing.

    Since I am writing here I will say that I believe, despite a further strengthening of that buzzsaw named Dorian, that we may have peaked its intensity and a slowing of its forward speed will now literally blow some of its warm water source away from its small center, with that water being replaced by cooler water in the upwelling process, therefore slightly weakening the hurricane. I’ll gamble a steady no change in wind next update, then down by 5 MPH or 10 MPH in the following 2 updates.

    I’ve also heard somewhere talk of a 30-hour stall-out over the Bahamas. This will not be happening. It may come to an essential halt for several hours before its northward movement begins. 30 hours though? No. I did ask somebody where they got that information and they told me it was from someone posting a spaghetti plot a couple days ago. That in itself tells you it’s bad information. I did not bother going to look for the source. It’s not even worth it. I’d rather focus on the facts, and at least make as sound a forecast as I can, without worrying about what others post. Although that’s hard. 😉

  35. It’s interesting to note how many tropical systems formed or still existed outside of the June 1 – November 30 defined season back in the 1950s.

    We’ve seen that again several times during the last decade. Interestingly, both of these coincided with near to just past peak of the warm phase of the AMO (Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation). That index plays a giant role in the weather and is largely ignored.

  36. I am in agreement with the evacuation order in the section of Florida they have issued it. I don’t think in the end they will be devastated there, probably far from it, HOWEVER no matter how high confidence the forecast may be the margin for error is still there and it’s too close to take any chances.

    If they evacuate and post-analysis shows that they didn’t necessarily have to, I would hope people look at the positive side, which is 2-fold. 1) It shows they are cared about and looked after. 2) It’s good practice. The “inconvenience” doesn’t matter at that point.

    So kudos to the officials there. Let’s hope for the best from there and all points north. And of course let’s hope for the best within the worst for those 2 Bahama islands.

    Back to monitor mode. I am heading up to Hampton Beach NH with my son this evening for the 4th fireworks display in as many nights and a season-ending arcade trip, but I’ll be checking in frequently.

    1. I think folks misunderstood the 30 hr thing. Cline from NHC said the impacts of the wind may be in the Bahamas for about 36 hours. They are already feeling an impact.

      Hopewell ham operators said up to 100mph.

      They are also expecting 1-2 feet of rain with perhaps higher amounts in a few areas

      2. That is absolutely true. The impacts of wind easily for that long. But as you see, somebody turned it into the eyewall being stationary over the same place for 30 hours. That is where social media fails.

        The good thing about that much rain falling there is most of it pretty much drains immediately into the ocean.

        1. it wasn’t social media. I found a couple of media sources. One was left leaning and one right leaning. It was BBC who reported it correctly.

          An example of why you do your due diligence always.

            1. I am sure but suspect it originated in the media sources. Although not a ton of difference between stalling and having hurricane force winds for 30 years

          2. And I like BBC. I highly dislike left & right. 🙂 But I’ll stop right there before I break my own rules and have to ban myself. 😉

  38. Is it me, or does the hr 144 pass on the Euro op run look closer to SE New England along with a hit to the Outer Banks …..

      1. Tiny bit. We’ll still see adjustments between model runs. This is not necessarily a trend and certainly not the final exact track.

  39. Tom I was thinking the same thing that the 12z EURO did look closer to SE New England. I would say with a track like that Cape and Islands could get some gusty winds and rainfall.

    1. Yeah, I hope this trend doesn’t continue and I’m going to be a bit uneasy the next 24 to 48 hrs for 2 reasons.

      1) potential change in strength/location of Atlantic ridge

      2) disturbances out in pacific or arctic that are over areas devoid of balloon data that will be better sampled in 24-48 hrs. I worry about the effects on the northern jet.

  40. I saw on Twitter that Dorian has been tracking further south than the HWRF has been showing. TK can you speak to this? Is it something to take into account in regards to track now or in the future?

  41. Eric Fisher

    ………It’s the first time on record we’ve had Cat 5 Atlantic hurricanes 4 straight years

    Dots replace a comment to the president and didn’t change the meaning.

  42. Tom I am hoping that cold front coming through on Wednesday with the shower and thunderstorm chance will be our strong defensive line and keeping Dorian over the fish with the only threat being rip currents.

    1. By the time Dorian gets to this latitude it will be a mere shadow of its former self. A broad, strong (but much weaker than currently) cyclone with pretty much no tropical characteristics left, or very much in transition. However its wind field will be much larger than it is now, which is normal.

  43. As we saw a bit of a wobble to the south we are now seeing one to the north. Wobbling. Normal. It can make a huge difference however when you are down to the moment of highest impact at one point. So there it becomes very significant.

  44. I know we been talking a lot about Dorian but the latest SREF for Wed puts most of SNE in that low tornado risk category. The higher values are in VT and NH.

  47. Mandatory evacuation for entire coast of SC. Schools to all be closed starting Tuesday. Full four lane reversal of I26 at i526 noon tomorrow. One lane reversed I278. All very familiar roads to me.

    I spent some time reading this weekend. I discovered that SC set many standards during Hugo that hold true today.

  48. My youngest and family drove to Disney. They stopped in Fayetteville NC on their return. She was amazed at how much damage remains after last years flooding of the Pee Dee River.

  49. From Meteorologist Ryan Hanrahan On Dorian
    18z Euro Ensembles have definitely ticked west toward the Space Coast. While a landfall is still unlikely a scrape by the western eyewall is a distinct possibility – and the results wouldn’t be pretty for the coast.

    SPC Outlook for tomorrow
    https://www.spc.noaa.gov/products/outlook/day2otlk.html

    Tweet from Ryan Hanrahan for tomorrow
    Not a lot of instability tomorrow but there is quite a bit of low level wind shear. If storms are able to develop there is a risk for severe weather and even an isolated tornado.

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