Storms? What Storms?

A week ago it appeared that a whole slew of tropical cyclones were bearing down on the East Coast and the Caribbean.  Now? Eh, not so much!

This is the map of the current tropical cyclones in the Atlantic Ocean, published on the National Hurricane Center's web site last night.  Sam was still a major hurricane, but it's expected to weaken to Category 2 status today, eventually weakening further to a post-tropical storm by Wednesday.  Once thought to hit Newfoundland, it's not going to make landfall anywhere in North America, and it may avoid landfall altogether (though Iceland is not out of the woods yet).  And those two waves that were expected to turn into tropical storms?  One of them became Victor, and it's already weakened to depression status.  The other wave that had a high chance of developing never even became a depression.  Figure that one out! 

There's no guarantee that the Atlantic will remain quiet for the last two months of this hurricane season, though it's more likely than not that it will.  There's a lot of Saharan dust in the air over the ocean, which limits tropical-storm development, and the wind shear over the Atlantic is getting very strong as well.  So I'll be cautiously optimistic and say that the worst of this season is over and that we're likely not to see any more storms before the end of November. But it's still a good idea to keep an eye on the tropics until then.

Henri. Merde.

When it turned out that the first week of August passed by without a hurricane in my area, I felt some considerable relief, as it meant that the Old Farmer's Almanac was wrong when it predicted a hurricane threat for the American Northeast for that time.  I laughed at the almanac, in fact, as it had gotten earlier forecasts for 2021 wrong.  It looks like the editors of that venerable publication will have the last laugh.  Because Tropical Storm (soon to be Hurricane) Henri could indeed hit the Northeast - maybe even the part where I live. 

This advisory from the National Hurricane Center at 5:00 PM yesterday left my blood run cold.

The projected track, once thought to remain out at sea, has moved farther to the west and is aimed at Boston.  The cone of uncertainty, you'll notice, also includes New York City and northeastern New Jersey.  That's likely because of this 12z GFS run from yesterday showing the storm on a northeasterly course and then actually drift over to Long Island before backing up and continuing on to Massachusetts as of 8:00 A.M., Monday, August 23.

The 18z run from yesterday shows a better outcome for the New York City area for that same day and time, though Cape Cod residents would get their hair mussed up somewhat.

Regardless, I didn't want to look at GFS computer projections after that.  NHC maps are scary enough, thank you.

Except for this one, issues at 11:00 P.M. last night, showing a turn back to the east.  But it may not be the way it ultimately goes.  And even if this map bears out, someone could still get hit.

I am possibly now, with the realization that Henri is going to hit someone, caught in the ethically dubious situation of hoping it misses the greater New York area, which is the same as hoping that it hits New England.  Because a "fish storm" scenario, where it says out to sea, is unlikely.