Accuweather’s Doomsday Joe Bastardi pegged Earl’s track within a handful of miles from a week out, one of his finest predictions ever. He said 100 miles from the Outer Banks, 100 miles from Cape Cod last Saturday-ish when all of the models threw the hurricane 300-500 miles further east. He then successfully resisted his typical urge to predict the worst case scenario – though he did make an absolutely batty prediction that Earl would gain 40 mph of windspeed after yesterday’s eyewall replacement cycle – and as a result, he’s got one of the best long-range predictions he’s ever made. Kudos to him.
Earl will gradually decline as it gets accelerated to the NNE. We might see some rain from this in my part of MD – there are rain bands making it as far west as Annapolis already. I see NYC as a blustery place on Friday Night/Saturday. They aren’t even guaranteed rain either, though I think they’ll get some. Steve’s Block Island location will see some legit tropical storm conditions for a few hours tonight, but I’m seeing a 40 mph sustained with gusts to 60 mph sort of scenario. Maybe an inch of wind driven rain. Nantucket should be in the western eyewall (whatever’s left of it) but I bet they don’t get a hurricane force sustained wind measurement. I’ll say worst sustained wind will be 70 mph for Nantucket (with far eastern Cape Cod similar). I’ll say that someone, somewhere in Nantucket or the Cape will read a gust of 90 mph. It’s a big, old, storm – there will be a couple of substantial gusts left in there.
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