Irene's Track Mimicing Floyd's

It appears to me that Irene will be a force to be reckoned with late this week and weekend here along the east coast of the USA.  Based on the larger scale synoptic pattern of the long waves of the upper atmosphere, Irene will take a track very similar to Hurricane Floyd of 1999.  Floyd is what gave Philly its rainiest month on record until this current month where 13.00" or rain has fallen thus far with 10 days remaining.  The all-time Philly precip record might be untouchable in a millenia if Irene delivers what I believe could be a season's worth of rainfall in 24 hours!  Below is Hurricane Floyd's track from September 13-18, 1999.

When looking at the track above, I personally feel that Irene will track to the left or west of the drawn track above.  Here is a neat IR satellite image of Floyd once into the Mid-Atlantic States.  Landfall was very close to Wilmington, NC.

NC did receive the brunt of the rainfall with this tropical system.  The map below shows why 35 people alone in NC lost their lives due to flash flooding. There are some very impressive totals in the data below.  Note the very sharp cut-off both to the east and the west of the track of the storm.

 The map below shows the overall impact of precipitation all up and down the east coast.  There was some serious flooding in the suburbs of Philly with the rains of Floyd.  If memory serves me correctly, the CDSD was closed the day after Floyd passed through not due to flooding, but due to a widespread loss of power across the region.  This storm packed quite a punch!

But before we have to contend with Irene, enjoy the next couple of days with brilliant sunshine interrupted by majestic cumulus, warm and dry air, and gentle to at times fresh breezes from the NW compliments of a large area of high pressure that has migrated down from O Canada.  The map below is for Tuesday morning where some areas just north of Harrisburg could most certainly be down in the upper 40s with clear skies and light winds and 10.5 hours of the sun hidden below our horizon leading to a net loss of radiation from the earth's surface.

I heard one that made me laugh this morning during a weather discussion on the radio.  The DJ asked is Irene actually would make it to Japan, would its name change to Eileen?  Now I know that's not right, but it is funny and it made me think of this......enjoy!

Enjoy this pristine spell of weather!

Smitty

AA:  Continuing to monitor the path and evolution of Irene.  beautiful weather the next couple of days.  It's only a few short days until we can talk face to face about the weather and fantasy baseball!