I'm meteorologist 7 Stewart here at
13 News Now WVEC in Norfolk, VA.
It is September 7th,
Thursday time now for another tropical
update and there's a lot going on
here as we near the peak of hurricane
season that is September 10th.
So we're just a few days away and
we have a major hurricane brewing in
the Atlantic that is Hurricane Lee.
If you just watched our last video
and you haven't been keeping up,
Lee is now a Category 4 storm
with winds of 130 mph and it'll
likely become a category five,
maybe even later tonight,
if not during the day tomorrow.
Now the thinking here at our
station is that there's about an
80 to 90% chance of this stays
offshore of the Mid-Atlantic,
likely offshore of Florida.
Questions come later into the period
as to whether there's some impacts
along parts of New England that
is looking a little more likely.
The potential is certainly there than
this storm could have some significant
impacts for the Canadian Maritimes
or the Northeast part of the US
but at least for the Mid-Atlantic,
we are saying about an 80 to 9080
and a 90% chance that this is
going to stay offshore.
Still uncertain though,
how far offshore, if it's just 100 miles,
that would be a big difference
than if it was 500 miles offshore.
If it's a little bit closer,
if it's just 100 miles offshore,
that'll still give some significant
weather impacts through the Mid-Atlantic.
So let's take a look.
The storm right now still east
of the Lesser Antilles,
still in that zone of about 8 to 9 days
away from making it to the US coastline.
And this is just based on the
average speed of tropical storms
and hurricanes over the years.
So still more than a week away
and a lot of time to watch it.
And we have Margo that is out there
towards the Cabo Verde Islands,
was a tropical depression,
is now a tropical storm will
likely become a hurricane,
but it's going to remain out
here in the middle,
middle part of the Atlantic for a good while.
There are some things that
might come interesting,
you know,
10-12 days down the line if it's
still lingering out there and just
spinning around in the Atlantic.
But of course,
our big concern is Hurricane Lee,
as we mentioned now a Category 4
storm as of the 5:00 advisory from
the National Hurricane Center.
This is a look at the enhanced satellite.
We can see a lot of the structure
of the storm better when we start
to adjust the colors a little bit.
And you can see this is a very
concentric storm,
maybe a little bit of wind shear
here on the northwestern corner where
we're not seeing quite the development.
But again, this is a massive storm,
a very powerful storm with those
strong winds and a very concentric eye.
Notice that eye is almost a perfect circle.
There's very little to inhibit,
inhibit this storm of continuing
the strength in the category 5
strength and that's what the National
Hurricane Center is showing.
And notice how large it is.
This is the width of that storm
and when I advance it here,
the cone is here, the storm is this big.
So the cone is where we think
the center of the storm will go.
That doesn't mean that areas outside
of that cone won't feel the impact.
As we saw the storm is this big,
covers a very large area.
So even as it moves off towards
the northwest, it'll likely grow
as a Category 5 Lesser Antilles.
Puerto Rico again,
even if the storm is, you know,
this large feeling some of
those fringe impacts,
certainly dangerous water
conditions for Puerto Rico,
the Dominican Republic, Haiti,
even over into the Turks and
Caicos and the Bahamas.
Even as soon as tomorrow likely feeling
those strong impacts through the
Lesser and Greater Antilles and then
probably into Friday or likely Saturday,
certainly feeling the impacts of
the swells here through the Turks
and Caicos in the Bahamas and by
Sunday or Monday even here through
the Mid-Atlantic region.
So this is where it is
through Tuesday afternoon,
2:00 Category 4 storm.
There are usually fluctuations and tropical
systems when they become this large,
it's hard for them to maintain that
strength of 165 mile per hour winds.
There are things called eyewall
replacement cycles where the eyewall
starts to collapse and a new one develops.
We see that very,
very often with these strong systems.
And and again,
it's just very tough to maintain
that strength for a length of time.
But still talking about a Category 4
storm here east of the Turks and Caicos.
So this is where this is how it looks
as we go out beyond next Tuesday,
this takes us through next Saturday,
so not this Saturday, but next Saturday,
the 16th.
This is the European run of the ensembles.
We've talked about them before.
How we just tweaked the forecast a
little bit or the initial conditions
around the storm or maybe say the storm
is a little stronger or a little weaker.
So basically it gives us 50 different
scenarios that could happen with Lee.
You'll notice they're all pretty
consistent through the cone,
which is what we would expect.
But then there is a little
bit of some variance.
There are a couple of these
models that bring it closer to
the coastline like this one.
Again, most of them keep it offshore.
That's what we like to see.
That's why we have that high level of
confidence that this will stay offshore.
But what happens if this tweak,
this run is a little more is the
right one or what if it's this one,
it could be this one, it could be this one.
But you know that's why we can't
say that you turn your back on
this storm and just say all
right, we know it's going to move offshore.
We we don't have to worry about it
because we can't say that at this point.
Again, this is taking us into the
middle and the end of next week.
That's the European model.
This is the American model that
European models run about 50 times.
There are fifty members of that ensemble,
30 here. So you're still seeing a few
that bring it closer to the coast.
This one here curves it.
He's coming here a little
bit farther to the West.
So what is that?
Maybe 4 out of 80 are saying that they could
have a closer run towards the US East Coast.
Again, that's why we can't say we're
totally done with this storm yet.
And I do want to go back here to the
European models and show you that well we
expected to stay off the US East Coast.
Look what happens here.
I can move this down up towards New York,
Boston, Nova Scotia, Maine,
can see the models are sort of focusing
here on port parts of the Northeast.
So, well,
we might be able to breathe quite
a bit easier here based on this
current forecast for the Mid-Atlantic,
certainly for Florida and the
Southeast areas from New Jersey,
certainly up towards New York,
Connecticut, Rhode Island,
Massachusetts, Vermont,
New Hampshire,
Maine,
Canadian Maritimes certainly could
see some impacts here as we head
towards the end of next weekend.
And I'll advance this here and show you that
the American model doesn't go quite as far.
It's a little bit slower with the system.
That's why these models
don't carry it even farther.
But again, notice there's some curves here.
There are some curves that
might come a little bit later,
so there could be some impacts
there through parts of New England.
Again,
that's a long ways off,
more than a week away from this weekend.
So of course,
we'll continue to watch this system
throughout Friday and this weekend
and have updates on air and online.