Tag: Cape Hatteras

The First Tropical Depression Of The Season

This path, taking a tropical system to Cape Hatteras then paralleling the east coast offshore, is fairly common. It’s usually well predicted.

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TD 1 has formed off the coast of Florida. I posted something about it on Facebook a few days ago. At that time the computers were stumped. Each model took the storm a different way.

Things have changed!

The spaghetti in this spaghetti plot is tightly clustered. Even the projected waypoint times closely align. This is what a spaghetti plot is best used for. The closer the alignment the more likely the forecast is good.

This path, taking a tropical system to Cape Hatteras then paralleling the east coast offshore, is fairly common and normally well predicted.

Tropical Depression 1 should become Tropical Storm Arthur. Graduation to hurricane is less likely.

Oh Canada (Computer Model)

Over the course of the hurricane season I’ll see lots of different computer projections. Hurricanes are notoriously difficult to forecast – especially before they form.

With that in mind, here’s the scenario presented by the Canadian CMC computer model. It builds a tropical system near the Dominican Republic, then streams it north, hitting Connecticut late Monday.

The color shading shows sea surface temperatures, which cool rapidly north of Cape Hatteras. Under this scenario, the storm would be extratropical by the time it got to New England. For all intents and purposes, that’s a minor factor.

Can it happen? Sure. Will it happen? Probably not.

Unfortunately, no one (certainly not me) is happy with a ‘probably not’ level of confidence. This will bear watching. More than likely it will be one of the dozens of false alarms I see every season.

It’s still scary to see.