First off, I cannot apologize enough for my year and a half absence from the blog. Life has been crazy for all of us for the last several months, and school has been busy...but still, that's no excuse. I promise I will update more often. Like, hopefully most days.
Anyway, onto the main topic in the weather world right now, which is newly formed Tropical Storm Isaias (pronunced Ee-Sy-Ee-Us), currently located over Hispainola. Models are suggesting that this system will make a very close run on southern New England on Tuesday, and every possibility remains on the table from a few clouds, to a heavy rain and wind storm, to the biggest hurricane to hit New England since Bob in 1991. Hopefully we will have a better idea on the final result later today, but right now the center is very poorly defined as it is in the process of transitioning to an area north of the big islands. This is quite similar to what we saw Dorian do last year, but there are plenty of key differences to note: the first is that the environment is not quite as promising for strengthening due to shear, and it will move much faster. That said, a significant hurricane is likely to be over the Bahamas by Saturday. It will then be swept to the north and ultimately pass, most likely, within the 40/70 benchmark. This would result in at least a torrential rain event. The bigger problems, though, come if it can ride a bit farther west, which the Euro ensemble members are favoring, which would result in a Gloria-type track riding the coast all the way up and slamming the region as a category two hurricane. That's not exactly likely...but it's not impossible either, so we have to keep a very close eye on this. If nothing else, please review your hurricane plans as the already insanely active 2020 hurricane season continues to churn out storm after storm at record pace (we're nearly 3 weeks ahead of 2005, believe it or not!). In fact, Isaias is by far the earliest 9th named storm on record! It's actually quite likely that 2020 will go down as the second most active atlantic season ever recorded and exhaust the entire name list, requiring the use of the greek alphabet for only the second time ever. The 2005 record of 28 named storms, while unlikely, is not unreachable either considering the peak of the hurricane season is Aug/Sept/Oct. Should we get 5 named storms in each, then 2 in November, we would add another 17 named storms to the current 9...which is 26, and would get us to the fifth letter of the greek alphabet (Epsilon). That said, any of these months have had as many as 8 tropical systems form in them, so even if two have 6, we would tie the record...or if a third forms in November (there were 3 in November and 1 in December in 2005). So while a reach to be sure...not impossible!
At this time, the odds of the following in central Connecticut are as follows:
Nothing at all: 10%
A glancing blow, with showery weather and a few gusts: 20%
Heavy Rain, wind (like Hanna in 2008): 45%
A major strike that rivals Irene, Sandy, Gloria, etc: 25%
Why is the heavy rain and wind the most likely scenario? Because the wind field is huge! In fact, so big that even if it passed over the 40/70 benchmark (about 200 mi SE of Cape Cod)- we would still be feeling tropical storm force winds! So that suggests to me that at least some pretty gusty wind and rain is quite likely.
We have to watch this. It's the biggest threat to SNE from a hurricane since Sandy. But we'll see how it goes!
