A Tropical Threat and Then an Autumnal Preview

It is now becoming clear that Hurricane Irene will have a major impact along the eastern seaboard late this upcoming week and weekend.  All of the modeling is in good agreement as to where this tropical system will move in the next 3-5 days.  It appears that Irene will stay out over the ocean east of FL and make landfall somewhere near the SC-GA border.  If this is the case, the beaches of SC will be ravaged with strong surf and a powerful surge of ocean water.  Here is a quick glance at the modeling of the movement of soon to be Hurricane Irene.

What is not as clear is how strong will Irene become.  This is a tricky call as the storm will be traveling over the rather large island of Hispaniola.  However, what should trump that factor is that the atmosphere is in near perfect conditions to ventilate the upwardly moving air and thus allow the storm to strengthen.  Ocean water temps are sufficiently warm as well to support rapid intensification. Here are the models' depictions of how the storm will strengthen.

A close-up IR image shows that it does have some ways to go to get better organized.  This is the most recent IR of TS Irene as of this writing.

And a wider view to get one's perspective of proximity to the islands and the mainland US.

Once the hurricane makes landfall, it will then continue to wreak havoc up the east coast and create flooding rains along and to the east of its path.  Again, here in our area of south central PA, and this is way too early to say for certain, it appears that next Sunday may feature windswept rains and embedded severe thunderstorms as Irene moves her "energy blob" poleward.  Here is the GFS depiction of the location of the storm next Sunday evening.

After the storm makes landfall somewhere near the SC-GA border as seen below.

Th

Then looking out into the distant future, it appears polar air masses will be on the move as we progress from a summertime pattern into more of an early autumn pattern.  Once Irene passes, a blast of much cooler air will invade the Mid-Atlantic where daytime temps will struggle to reach 70F on the Thursday prior to Labor Day.  We will then have a "dirty" warm up with showers accompanying the attempt of warm and humid air to re-invade for the Labor Day weekend.  However, as the GFS indicates, a very vigorous cold front will push across the state and usher in a true blast of autumnal air for the first week of September!  Look below...the 5C isotherm at 850 mb would support temps only in the mid 60s for this time of year. That is actually cross-polar flow right into New England.  I'll believe that when I see it....but the Euro is hinting at the same as well.

In closing, I can't help but wonder what the heck the global financial markets will do this upcoming week?!?!  With the burdensome regulations on business and industry coming out of DC, companies are at a loss as to whether hire or shift their operations to more friendly corporate jurisdictions in order to improve their balance sheets.  Some have suggested that eliminating the repatriation tax would allow these corporations to bring their monies back to the US.   Opponents (Dems) to this idea say that companies would only buy back their own stock or pay out the funds in dividends but not really hire more Americans.  I say so what!  If stocks would be repurchased or dividends increased, that would help the market and thus all Americans!  As many of us know, Wall Street is now Main Street as many retirement funds and 401Ks are invested in financial securities.  A rising tide lifts all ships!  And we sure could use more of this type of "stimulus".  It's no wonder that the polls are at an all-time low for the President's handling of the economy.....

Enjoy the remainder of the limited summer.

Smitty

AA:  Watching Irene move up the east coast this week and deliver heavy rains in our area next Sunday?  Then some early fall-like temps for last week of August and beginning of September.  Labor Day looks quite cool from this far out......