Hurricane Elsa Downgraded, Still Will Be Florida Storm...

Doing a midday post, not because there are major changes in Elsa, but rather because it's a holiday weekend and many people are over at the beaches or at the Florida Theme parks.   The changes with Elsa have been subtle as NHC downgraded her back to Tropical Storm strength on the 10 AM advisory.  That's partly because she continues to race westward so fast that most of the T-Storm are lagging behind to the east of the center.

The arrow in the bottom 2 pics indicate where the surface center was.  Elsa is expected to slow down as it begins to interact with land areas later tonight and on Sunday, and the NHC latest track is almost identical to their initial track 2 days ago.   Call them consistent as they do not like flip-flopping around from one advisory to the next.

The subtle difference can be seen in the close up views of the centerline forecast track below.

The top is yesterday's 4 PM advisory while the bottom is from 10 AM today.  With a major hurricane, subtle shifts in the track can mean huge impact differences.   But Elsa will not become a major hurricane and weaker systems typically have impacts well away from the centerline.   So far the thinking is a deep east coast trough has weakened the blocking high (Atlantic Ridge) north of Elsa and that will allow her to recurve back to the north.  However, looking back at another early July Hurricane (Dennis) in 2005, sometimes the recurve is not as sharp.

Right now the thinking is the upper trough will create a weakness for Elsa up over Florida.  But if that trough lifts out too quickly, like with Dennis, then Elsa's path might be on the western side of the cone? Regardless which track becomes reality, this remains a Florida storm.  Those of you at the beach will be fine if you return on Monday.   Impacts over the peninsula will be mostly rain and gusty breezes as Elsa will not require evacuations UNLESS it would strengthen over the eastern Gulf.  NHC is not predicting that.

So where is the cold front?  The top view clearly shows how the upper low has driven a cold front down into the deep South. There appears to be some smoke & haze north of the front.  The main clouds & showers have pushed into the Gulf and I'll be watching to see if any swirl of low pressure tries to form along the frontal boundary.  Note how cold it is over the NE & Great Lakes.

Boston & NYC were 100+ several days ago and now they're in the 50s & 60s and loving the good feel air.  Drier air (dew points in the 50s & 60s) has sunk over north Louisiana and I'm hoping some of those lower DPs push over us later today and tonight.  We're likely to see some spotty storms bubble up during daytime heating this afternoon, and I hope they don't last too long to spoil the outdoor events/fireworks scheduled for this evening.  Enjoy your weekend, but keep the umbrella handy just in case.  Stay tuned!