Mother Nature's "Hat Trick"

In hockey, when a player scores 3 goals, it’s called a “hat trick”.  Tonight, for the second time this season, we have 3 named storms to track.  Jose is still a threat to the East Coast.  Lee is way out in the Atlantic and is not expected to be a land threat.  However, our newest named storm, Maria, is projected to become a hurricane tomorrow and possibly a major hurricane after that.  Her track will impact the Leeward islands south of where Irma went(that is the good news), but it’s not clear yet whether Maria will stay south of Puerto Rico & Hispaniola or turn to the north and stay east of Florida.  In fact, the Euro model is suggesting Jose will stall off the east coast allowing Maria to interact with him in what is called the “Fujiwara effect”.  That’s where 2 storms, when they get close to one another, rotate around a single point.   This set up may test the forecasting ability of NHC well into and through NEXT weekend.  Obviously, the tropics remain very active and we really need cold fronts to start coming.  For the next 10-14 days, I don’t see any signs of another front so we’ll have to monitor these storms closely until we get deeper into October.  RIGHT NOW, none of the computer models show any threat coming into the Gulf.   What you hate to see is another hurricane possibly going over the same areas that Irma destroyed.  Let’s hope not.

 

In the short term, the summer-like feel is back as Fall officially arrives on the 22^nd.   I hope you haven’t put away the shorts yet.  Several weeks before we need the sweaters.