There was a bit of a pissing contest late in yesterday's diary, someone whining that I took thousands of words to basically say I didn't have a clue. Everyone's entitled to their opinion and, being a meteorologist, I've developed a pretty thick skin. Hehehe. So, I didn't reply, and on a personal level, I really couldn't care less about criticism from one person. But from a communication standpoint, I'm concerned that someone would come away thinking that. If you've got questions or think I'm being too vague or cagey in my assessment feel free to ask in the comments and I'll try my best to reply. I don't want anyone walking away from this confused, thinking I/we've got no idea about this thing. My goal here is to help inform, not bloviate or, worse yet, confuse.
Yes, I do play up the uncertainty and question marks. It's tough to forecast these things and errors happen, so I don't want anyone reading this to be caught unaware. But let me be clear... in my update and in the comments yesterday I did try to convey a pretty solid scientific assessment here that Irene would likely track a little east of NHC's track (at that time) and remain offshore of the Delmarva and New Jersey, which has important implications up into New York and New Jersey. That, to me, was the biggest question mark, and so that was my focus. I didn't want to slight North Carolina, but that part of the forecast is pretty straightforward - Irene's center should go through North Carolina most likely somewhere in the far east, near Morehead City. Thereafter, though I waffled and hedged a bit, I came to the conclusion that Irene should move up off the Delmarva and NJ, into central Long Island and central/eastern CT. If I communicated that poorly, or made it sound like pure dart-throwing guesswork... well, my bad. Anyway, to the situation at hand...
I'm sure this will still be a long write-up, as I like to provide you with some real info and how I'm making the conclusions I am, but I'll be a BIT briefer than my usual novel. I think it's important to get this published relatively early.
The main take-away this morning is that everything you just read in the intro - trying to make clear what I thought Irene's path would be - remains on track. My analysis is unchanged, and we've seen some convergence of the model guidance on this. You won't see that convergence TOO well on this model track map:
...because of the handful of western solutions. But those specific models did trend east from their previous runs. Plus, the few models not on this plot are in superb agreement near the NJ coast (Euro clips the NJ coast, NAM just offshore, BAMD just offshore). So, those western solutions look "bad" right now. And note that they also overrepresent (one of them, the GFDN, is a blended model between the GFDL and NOGAPS, which just so happen to be the other two western models). So, I'd take a blend of all the other models, which are in beautiful agreement, and carry Irene up jsut off the NJ coast.
And, in fact, the National Hurricane Center, in their advisory early this morning has, in fact, nudged the track offshore of NJ now. To be clear and fair, they do say that the change is "in the noise level". I understand their point... given standard forecast errors that far out, such a small change is trivial in terms of the distance the track was adjusted. But in terms of impact, it's a non-trivial change and, in my opinion, probably a correct change. I really can't argue with their new track at all. Here's what it looks like... and, as I said, this is basically my forecast too... I see no issues with this:
As for intensity, that's trickier. Overnight recon reports, both in pressure and flight level winds have been pretty supportive of Irene's Cat 3 status. In fact, they were more supportive than at any other time yesterday. And a very recent recon pass clocked another flight level wind supportive of Irene being a 100kt Category 3 hurricane. Yet the instrument on-board used to detect surface winds (called an SFMR... stepped-frequency microwave radiometer) barely found minimal Cat 2 winds. So, NHC compromised and dropped Irene to a high Cat 2 this morning. Again, I can't really disagree. The SFMR is a direct measurement - albeit remote. The translation from flight level winds is just an estimation. Of course, SFMR isn't perfect either. So, I like that they took a compromise. That's the smartest, safest bet.
As for her future intensity, Irene continues a back and forth battle. She looked rather ragged earlier this morning (modest shear and a bit of dry air). But looks to have bounced back again. Here's the latest satellite view:
...no eye and an imperfect representation (still a bit of erosion on the far western side), but this is still pretty impressive. Irene is again looking pretty solid. So, once again, I can't quibble at all with NHC's forecast. They allow Irene to edge up in intensity just slightly. I'm not certain she will, given her back and forth. But since pressures and flight level winds already support 100kts and she looks a little more healthy now than earlier, I think they're correct to show this small uptick... albeit sort of low confidence.
This means Irene should hit far eastern North Carolina (her center... much of NC will get significant weather from her) early tomorrow afternoon as a low-end Category 3 hurricane. Then she'll likely remain off the Delmarva and New Jersey coasts - though quite close and her relatively slow motion will help keep the west side winds up (storm motion gets translated on top of the circulation; so, when storms accelerate to the northeast they're west side winds tend to slacken off). As such, the Delmarva and New Jersey should still be fully prepared for a hurricane. She'll weaken a little as the waters start to cool there and landfall probably around central Long Island and again on central/eastern Connecticut on Sunday.
Keep in mind, Irene is large. So, folks well to the east should still anticipate full hurricane conditions. For example, Cape Cod will likely see at least hurricane force gusts on the south facing beaches (ok, gusts wouldn't technically constitute "hurricane conditions" ...but I'm saying, "at least").
I'll leave it at that for now. I've not really talked about the various problems/possibilities with the forecast this morning. So, I apologize for this being much "drier" than most of my posts, but I just don't think there's too much left in terms of a forecast - which is my focus. The forecast confidence has increased as the models have converged and Irene has behaved well. So, now it's really just preparation mode and waiting and watching for those in harms way.
