Everything is shifting slowly eastward in the track of Irene – in fact, some models are missing the US entirely. The National Hurricane Center is lagging on their forecast a little bit. If they knew about my momentum rule, they’d be able to fix it early. At this point, to miss the United States entirely would put some egg on the faces of all those models who were so bullish for the last week.
Whereas the NHC shows a landfall in the middle of South Carolina (with a track up the east coast that would take the bulk of the remnants over Maryland), I’m thinking it’ll be east of this. I’m thinking Wilmington, NC, re-emerging near Norfolk, with a path that curves along the US coast, skimming easternmost Long Island and making a second landfall on Cape Cod.
Irene is enormous right now, and also quite disorganized. If she can pull herself together, she’ll be a beast – if not in max wind speed, at least in total power. I think she will. I have no reason to doubt the NHC’s assertion of Category 3 – though I’ll say 125+ mph instead of 115 mph. By the time it gets to Cape Cod, I could see it as a 70 mph storm.
Needless to say, this one needs to be watched.
Addendum:
The NHC is now forecasting essentially what I was saying yesterday. Here’s the track, with the only difference being that they make this more of a problem for Maryland than I was, by tracking it further west after landfall. Oh boy…
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