Good evening everybody.
David Paul with you in the KHOU 11
Weather Center with your tropical
update for this Wednesday evening,
August the 18th headlines Hurricane Grace,
now a hurricane cat.
One takes aim at the Cancun and the Yucatan.
That's tonight into the early morning hours
of Thursday as a cat one hurricane and Onry.
There have been some forecast
track adjustments to say the least.
Now it looks likely there will be
impacts may be significant impacts
from on re as a hurricane.
For the coastal Northeast United States,
in the cities near the coast,
here are the two systems.
As they stand tonight,
grace a cat, one hurricane,
literally just hours away from making
landfall near Cancun and Cozumel.
And then here's on re still a tropical storm,
but unres been getting better
organized during the day.
Today.
The system itself is very compact
and we've got plenty of convection.
Those are the bright whites and Grays you
see there near the center of the storm,
and so it's getting its act together
wins in on rear at 70 miles an hour.
This evening it's drifting West
at 9 miles an hour.
Forecast track from the Hurricane Center,
and this has been adjusted
quite a bit during the day.
Instead of taking that turn and
racing off to the Northeast,
remember the past couple of days that
forecast has been down and around and
then back almost completely circumventing
the island nation of Bermuda right there.
Now it's a much more northerly track,
much closer to the big cities of the
East Coast of the United States,
so take a look at this.
Sunday evening into Monday afternoon.
Both New York and Boston,
MA New York are in the western
side of that forecast cone.
That means it's possible you could
take a direct hit from a cat one or
strong tropical storm on re early next week.
Late in the weekend and early next week.
Let's take a closer look at
this so the computer models.
Now, this is a comparison between
the American model,
the GFS that's in yellow
and the European model.
That's the euro,
and that's in red and will
run these two simultaneously.
And there actually is general
agreement with the track.
Both of them.
Take it up the East Coast much closer
than the forecast models had been
anticipating the past couple of days.
There is a big difference in intensity.
The euro is a much weaker system
and it's further off the coast,
while the GFS American model
is a much more intense storm,
a strong cat one sitting off
the coast of Boston, MA.
As we head into Sunday night this
Sunday night at 10:00 o'clock,
let's take a closer look at that GFS
model and I wanted to compare it to
the National Hurricane Center forecast track,
and I've got the two laid down
here together and they mirror
each other quite closely.
Both the Hurricane Center
and the GFS bring a cat.
One hurricane almost due east
of New York and New Jersey.
That's going into Sunday morning
early Sunday morning at 8:00 AM.
That would put some significant surf and
create dangerous swimming and boating
conditions for the Jersey Shore and for
New York and Long Island in the Bay.
And then as we head into early Monday
morning, the wee hours is 3:00 AM Monday,
but the cat, one hurricane,
just off the coast of Cape Cod, Nantucket.
And that's close enough where you would
have significant wind and possibly
surge for portions of Cape Cod,
especially the interior portion of the Bay.
Preparations up and down the East Coast here.
If you have marine interests
today need to be underway.
If you have boats or or equipment
out here near the water that could be
impacted by a rise in sea or tides,
you should be taking precautions
or action to move it away from the
coastline as it's looking more
likely you're going to take at least
some sort of an impact up here as
we head into Sunday and Monday,
and then I find this interesting.
The storm is forecast to weaken
but look at this.
You may still have tropical storm conditions.
To deal with on the coast of Maine as
we head into late Monday night into
the wee hours of Tuesday morning.
OK, now down to the Caribbean.
Hurricane Grace became a hurricane
on this Wednesday morning.
It's been hurricane all day.
Max winds are at 80 miles an hour.
Those sustained winds right near
the center of grace,
but there are wind gusts in here
near the center of 100 miles an
hour and sometimes a little bit
above 100 miles an hour.
So Cancun Cozumel are going to take
a hard hit late tonight into the
early morning hours of Thursday
and I thought this was interesting.
Cancun, Cozumel have had a rough go of it.
If indeed Grace does make landfall
here tonight, tomorrow,
and it looks very likely this
is going to be the 4th.
Hurricane that has made landfall
in this area in less than a year.
Last year, Delta Zeta and Gamma,
all in October all crossed
land right here in Cancun,
Cozumel and so Grace 2021 August is
going to be the 4th system to do that.
And if you look at the forecast track,
there's race going through.
I found this interesting, so if you remember.
Delta.
Was the one that just missed.
Houston went to Lake Charles as a hurricane,
did damage,
and then Zada made landfall
and impacted New Orleans and
both continued inland weekend.
But both of those storms impacted
Atlanta almost directly with both their
past crossing up there well inland.
So tonight here the way the watches
and warning stands across the
Caribbean western tip of Cuba
under Tropical Storm Watch.
Tropical storm warnings in orange.
And then here's where the
hardest hit is going to be.
It's a small area.
It's a very compact hurricane.
But there's a year hurricane
warnings that include Cancun,
the island of Cozumel,
and so a lot of people across the
Yucatan are going to take a hit
from a cat one hurricane tonight.
There it is moving in as an
85 mile an hour hurricane.
Weakens to a tropical storm and
then quickly moves back out over
the open water or the bad campet
she re develops into an 80 mile
an hour hurricane on Friday.
And then moves inland into Mexico.
Now this is going to be a significant
flash flood and wind event for Mexico,
especially in the higher
elevations of central Mexico.
You've got the mountains in here.
Those stick up high into the atmosphere
that will wring out the moisture and so
flash flooding is a significant risk as we
head into Saturday and Sunday for Mexico.
And I know what you're thinking.
Is this good across all the way
over Mexico and into the Pacific?
And if it does that,
what would happen?
Well, that's a very good question,
so here's the forecast track from
the Hurricane Center and the GFS.
The American model both take
a cat one into Mexico.
This is going into this Friday at 8:00 PM.
So when a storm crosses over from the
Atlantic Basin into the Pacific Basin.
A couple of things can happen.
First of all,
we've had 19 of these from Atlantic to
Pacific crossing over that we know of.
Since 1842.
Now, in order for the storm to keep
its name to keep its name of grace.
Since 2001,
the rules are that this system would have
to maintain a low level circulation,
identifiable low level circulation all the
way across interior Mexico and then emerge
in the Pacific with that circulation intact.
If it does that,
it will keep its same name.
It will be grace if it fails to do that.
If the circulation is so disruptive that
all there is is just a little mid level
circulation and then it redevelops.
It would get a new name on
the Pacific list of names,
so we're going to have to wait and see.
But computer models,
the GFS is very aggressively redeveloping
whatever comes off the Mexican
coast of the Pacific Mexican coast,
redeveloping it into a tropical storm
or a hurricane in the open Pacific.
Will it maintain the same name, grace?
We'll just have to wait and see if it
maintains that low level circulation,
identifiable low level circulation
as it crosses over Mexico.
Something to keep an eye on.
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Next update on Thursday lot
going on out there.
We look forward to bringing it to you.