Blogtrek

Where is it headed? Isabel report 4

This morning I got a jolt. For the past day or so, the GFS runs have been indicating that it would go by peninsular Florida, then head out to the northeast and hit the Carolinas, and Gary Gray came to that conclusion also. I looked at the GFS run this morning and found to my surprise that it was going to go to New Jersey instead! That would have meant hurricane force winds in New York City. The 12Z run took it to eastern Nova Scotia, and 18Z has it pounding the Canadian Maritimes and causing a major disaster there. So now what? Where is this thing going? It is starting to go east and pop all over the place again.

Tonight I took a look at Gary Gray's take on the storm. He says that the GFS tends to let go of ridges and troughs too soon, and in Isabel's case that would take it farther to the east. The maps indicate a huge high in the north Atlantic that blocks Isabel and makes it go west. He concentrated on other models, including one called ECMWF. So I took a look at that myself. It only goes 6 days and at that time, next Wednesday, it has it out in the middle of the Atlantic, but in a trajectory that would take it to New England. So it sort of agrees with GFS. Gary Gray winds up concluding that it is likely to hit either the Carolinas or New England. So both areas need to watch for this storm.

The other thing I notice about it is Wow!! It is up to 160 mph, making it a Category 5 hurricane. This has me concerned. Sustained 160 mph winds would really cause damage to an area. Even 140 mph winds would, if it should weaken a bit before hitting shore. So that has me concerned about hurricane force (75 mph) winds in my area, which would knock trees down everywhere and cause some roof damage. But it is not the most forceful tropical storm out there now. Typhoon Maemi had 175 mph winds gusting to 205 mph and is forecast to turn northeast and go between Korea and Japan; it is now down to 140 mph.