Although many of you may not have noticed, it’s been a long time since I posted anything to this blog. To be honest, with all of these recent upper-level lows, the weather has been rather bleh. We do have some interesting things on the way though, so I’ll quickly update you here.
The animation above (click on it if it isn’t moving) shows Ophelia in the lower-right moving north-northwest at about 10 kts. Current intensity is 115 mph, making it the 3rd major hurricane of the season. Bermuda may get glanced and New Foundland will be anxiously watching, but the majority of guidance has Ophelia moving out to sea and not affecting anyone. A couple of the shallower models have Ophelia making an anti-cyclonic curvature, but for now we will ignore this.
Philippe by comparison is a weak, 50 mph tropical storm that looks puny on satellite imagery (not shown). The track guidance is rather interesting though with many models moving Philippe (some as a very weak system) further west before possible interaction with a deep trough in the Central Atlantic. I am not sure if I buy the recurvature out to sea in about 5 days as the pattern will go from highly amplified to more zonal across the north. This usually promotes ridging in the subtropical Atlantic and thus a more westerly motion to anything caught underneath. If we use the Western Pacific as a proxy, then I would at least not ignore Philippe if I live in the Bahamas (which I don’t. . .but I wish).
Meanwhile, the weather you actually care about. . .
The story for this weekend is going to be “Stagnant Pattern”. The Mid-Atlantic and Northeast will be under the influence of another cutoff upper-level low that will wander the area into early next week. This means cloudy skies with occasional showers and maybe a thunderstorm while temperatures stay in the 50s. Believe it or not, some of the higher terrain of the Appalachians may get their first measurable snow this weekend!!!! Elsewhere, the Great Lakes down through the Central Gulf coast looks tranquil with temperatures in the upper 50s north to the lower 80s south. The Pacific Northwest will start to feel the influence of a strong trough which could provide some Fall-version excitement in the way of increasing temperatures, possible severe weather in the Plains and Midwest, and maybe even some rain for TX/OK/LA!
I’ll try to update more frequently now that the pattern is changing. Thanks for reading!