Blogtrek

Report 7: Isabel surprises

Just as it seems the models are in agreement and Isabel is headed right up the Chesapeake Bay straight towards the Washington Monument with 120 mph winds, Isabel pulls some surprises. They were talking about some shear affecting her progress. Today she got clobbered by it and her winds, despite an incredible tornado-like 236 mph gust in the clouds, dropped from 145 mph to 125 mph. Her huge eye, as if it suddenly looked into the bright sun, shrunk and shrunk until it vanished. She is predicted to hit another shear tomorrow and become even weaker, but she may grow stronger over the warm Atlantic, but then she may get weaker in coastal waters. It's a "good news, bad news" game. And now she has pulled another surprise tonight. The GFS, ETA, and all of the "SHIPS" runs now show Isabel hitting further south in North Carolina, like at Morehead City, then heading northwestward into western Virginia, Tennessee, and West Virginia. The Canadian GEM still shows her shooting up the Chesapeake but not as severe as before.

So what does it mean? Maybe Washington, Baltimore, and especially Hampton Roads are off the hook. It would be headed straight for Richmond, but go south of there and because of crossing over all that land, it weakens to tropical storm force with some hurricane winds over water. There would be no major catastrophic storm; as Gary Gray says, the Atlantic Coast won't fall off into the sea.

But keep alert, because more surprises may be coming. She may head to New England. She may hit South Carolina and produce floods there. She may even get into western Virginia, wheel around, and head back to Philadelphia and New York. Hurricanes are notoriously unpredictable and we should keep alert. Gov Warner was right in calling a state of emergency in Virginia. Hope he can deal with this emergency without the National Guard troops that can't help because they are in Iraq.