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Hurricane Joaquin Could Strike Mid Atlantic Coast Or The Northeast?
A dangerous flooding potential is shaping up for the Mid Atlantic and Northeast .
Flooding has already occurred in many places and with heavy rains forecasted to continue all week long, this could get very serious! Some areas could receive up to 10 inches or more of rain.
New computer models are in and it does not look good. Joaquin is now a hurricane, this storm does have the potential to make a landfall in the US.
The computer models have shifted the storm track more to the west than earlier models were forecasting, tracks shown below by the weather channel.
Even If the US does not take a direct hit from hurricane Joaquin, it’s force could join up with the existing storm that’s hanging tight along the east coast and dump a tremendous amount of rain.
The projected path of Joaquin is quite concerning.
According to Accuweather.com - Joaquin may converge with another slow-moving storm in the East to add to a serious flooding situation into early next week.
According to AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Elliot Abrams, “The dry spell and local drought conditions will be washed away by heavy rain and flooding.”
Stalled out fronts often times spell disaster and allow for Hurricanes to hit the US.
Normally fronts continue moving from west to east and steer most Atlantic hurricanes out to sea.
Weather Underground reports: Tropical Storm Joaquin is on the verge of becoming a hurricane, and a hurricane watch has been issued for the central Bahamas while we nervously eye its potential to affect the U.S. East Coast.
Tropical Storm Joaquin underwent a period of noticeable strengthening Tuesday afternoon over the western Atlantic Ocean, and it appears likely to become a hurricane just east of the Bahamas before a complicated atmospheric pattern makes its future track – including any potential landfall on the U.S. East Coast – extremely difficult to forecast.
Residents along the East Coast of the U.S. should pay close attention to the forecast now through this weekend. It’s a particularly difficult forecast that hinges on the behavior of several different atmospheric features over North America and the North Atlantic Ocean.
Computer forecast models (see graphic below) – and the meteorologists who rely on them for guidance – are grappling with a complex interaction between Joaquin, a cold front near the East Coast, the remnants of Tropical Storm Ida, a strong bubble of high pressure aloft over the North Atlantic Ocean, and a potentially strong area of low pressure aloft digging into the southeastern U.S. later this week.
Joaquin’s future depends critically on the position and relative strength of those players – not to mention its own strength. Strong wind shear had kept most of Joaquin’s thunderstorm activity (convection) south of its center of circulation, but that changed Tuesday afternoon as thunderstorms developed over the circulation center.
Air Force reconnaissance aircraft flew into the storm as that happened. The crew reported a central barometric pressure of 990 millibars – considerably lower than most forecast models had expected this early in Joaquin’s evolution – signaling a robust tropical cyclone gaining strength. (Lower central pressure generally corresponds to higher wind speeds in tropical cyclones.)
