Hurricane Arthur Getting Closer To The Coast

Hurricane Arthur was upgraded from a tropical storm at 5AM EDT on Thursday.  Hurricane warnings are up for the entire North Carolina coastline north to the Virginia border. Max winds are 90 mph; should reach Category 2 intensity early 4th of July morning with winds of 105 mph. Arthur is still 200 mph SW of Cape Hatteras moving NNE at 10-15 mph.

Its interesting to see how Arthur evolved from a disturbance over South Carolina, sliding southeast over the ocean then doubling back north off the coast of Florida over the last 5 days.

Most models take the center of Arthur over the Outer Banks. The HRRR shows it shifting track to the northeast hugging the coast later today.

The National Weather Service office in Morehead, North Carolina has an excellent discussion on the hurricane with wind and wave forecasts. Winds will increase rapidly Thursday evening with max gusts approaching 100 in local areas along the Outer Banks. The window for 80-100 mph will be around 12 hours.

Total rainfall could exceed 7 inches in many areas.

Wave forecast calls for 10-18 foot waves early Friday morning.

Tropical Storm (Eventually Hurricane) Arthur UPDATE

Arthur is now entering warmer water as it moves north today and tonight. Winds are now 60 mph.

Ocean temperatures are between 80 and 85 degrees along the Outer Banks.

The smorgasbord of dynamic and statistical model projections all take this soon-to-be hurricane slightly off shore by the 4th of July.

The winds increase along with significant pressure falls over the next 3 days.

Buoy data near the Outer Banks will start to show spikes in wind speed and pressure drops. Check the buoy data tomorrow and Friday HERE

The heaviest rain should stay off shore on the 4th of July.

First Tropical Storm In The Atlantic: ARTHUR

The first storm has officially formed in the Atlantic 32 days into the season. Tropical Storm Arthur now has winds of 50 mph with slow movement to the northwest. This SITE has a great infrared loop of its evolution.

The circulation is noticeable on the visible satellite Tuesday morning. This image shows its position relative to the east Florida coast and the Bahamas.  VISIBLE SATELLITE LOOP

Tropical storm wind (35+ mph) probabilities through Friday the 4th of July are the highest along the North Carolina coastline.

All of the computer models (spaghetti plot) keep the center of the storm slightly off the Carolina coast over the next 5 days. Google Earth plot is here

The initial model estimates put the eye of the hurricane over the Outer Banks on the 4th of July.

CURRENT NORTH CAROLINA RADAR LOOP

Official National Hurricane Center track as of noon Tuesday July 1st is this:

How Has Our Summer Outlook Fared So Far?

Those of you who are saying "What happened to the cool summer you guys talked about"? My response is three fold. One, remember that no summer is ever cool. We predicate our summer outlook with this statement each year. Two, we talked about how this summer would have frequent breaks from the heat. That is, we'd have bursts of heat followed by breaks in the 70s especially early on. That was the critical element of our outlook WHICH HAS WORKED OUT TREMENDOUSLY! Third, we are only 30 days into the 3 months are summer. So far, June temperatures are running about 0.8 degrees above average. Here is our summer outlook map (for all 3 months) that we used looking at several years that were shaping up to be similar to 2014. Remember that this map was created on April 9th.

Here is a better comparison between our forecast and the June temperatures.

1) The core of the heat we believed would push a bit east into the Great Plains. It stayed out west.
2) The areas of "cooler" air (gulf coast and Florida) were on target.
3) The slightly above normal temperatures for Ohio and the Ohio Valley were pretty close.

     The BIG miss was the "cooler" air in the upper Great Plains.

Have the overall conditions changed since April? Will we stick with the original summer outlook? I'll revisit summer in a few week.