Blogtrek

Hurricane Coming?

I heard on the news recently that a tropical wave way out in the Atlantic has become Tropical Storm Fabian, and just tonight it became Hurricane Fabian. It is way out to sea but I want to see if it would affect where I am living (in central Virginia). So I checked the hurricane sites such as Weather Underground's site. It shows the future track of the tropical storm for a few days and shows that it will skirt north of the Caribbean islands, such as the Leeward Islands. But that's not far enough. I want to know if it will hit the mainland United States, and if so, where. There are two sources of this. I tried the Global Forecasting System first. I checked it two days ago and it said that Fabian, which I suppose will become a major hurricane, will hit Miami, then go in the Gulf and hit Fort Walton Beach, Florida, then go off to the northwest and peter out and not affect central Virginia. I checked it again today. The forecast has changed. The 384-hour forecast shows that Fabian will approach Florida, turn up to the north, strike the Wilmington, NC area and make a direct hit on central Virginia. We hardly need this here in Virginia. We have had enough rain this year, and a 6-10 inch deluge, which is what this storm would produce, would cause massive flooding all over the place. I also checked Gary Gray's discussion and he says it may come up the Eastern seaboard, saying that the GFS scenario has Fabian first "taunting Florida" then "slamming hard into the Carolinas". But he notes that there are other models that take it out to sea, and still others that cause it to go poof midsea, sort of like Debby did near Hispaniola in 2001.

I will be monitoring this storm carefully. The local news media don't mention it much at all, and it could conceivably go another way. But it seems like it is going to become another Fran or Floyd. Watch out for those F storms, those storms that have an f-word for their name, such as Fabian. By the way, these links are likely going to become different or invalid in a few days.