Hurricane Irene... Important Friday Update

Hurricane Irene... Important Friday Update

The latest data is in and it continues to confirm my earlier projections that the center of Irene will likely come ashore somewhere on Long Island on Sunday afternoon. I am a bit concerned that the storm may accelerate a bit more and that would make the worst of the storm arrive sometime Sunday morning. That is something that needs to be watched carefully. Irene is still 330 miles south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and over 800 miles from Providence. The storm continues to show some fluctuation in intensity and is still in an environment where it could ramp up a bit before reaching the North Carolina coast tomorrow. Once it breaks north of the Carolinas it will typically begin a slow weakening process but it is uncertain just how fast that deterioration will take place since Irene is a very large storm.

All of us should now be preparing for strong, perhaps hurricane force wind gusts on Sunday. While there will be heavy, squally rains in the order of 2-5 inches, it is likely that the heaviest rain, in the 5-10 inch range, will fall to the west of the storm center over New York and Western Connecticut. Tides and storm surge along the coast will depend to a great extent on the timing of arrival of the center Irene. Tides on Sunday will be low around 2pm and high around 7:30am and 8pm.

I will have another update early this evening or sooner if any game-changing data comes in before then.

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