Wednesday Update: Irma Barreling Through Islands, My Forecast on Track (For Now)

Good morning. Irma has continued to maintain its Category 5 intensity with winds of 185mph plus and is currently barreling through the Islands as seen below. This includes the US Virgin Islands.  This storm will maintain its intensity as it makes its way to the US Mainland.

I put my initial track/forecast out (in yellow) Monday night which had impacts from eastern FL into the Carolinas...

Models since then have shifted more towards my ideas as seen by the next image....

Don't be fooled, this forecast is far from over. I will say however that my view of this storm not hitting western FL or the Gulf is starting to pan out well. At this time my biggest concern is eastern FL and the Carolina's. I strongly believe that folks in the southeast need to starting taking this very seriously. 

The National Hurricane Center is starting to shift their cone more east...

Everyone needs to realize that we still are over 100 hrs away from this storm threatening the US. This means more changes in track can occur. The escape route of out to sea is still on the table but I do not assign it a high probability at this time. 

To give an example of model spread check out the GFS models potential storm locations for Saturday night...

You can see the fork in the road developing. Each circle represents a potential storm location. Now check out how this spread widens by early next week!...

This is my point, we have a lot of details to work out here. Everyone on the east coast needs to be on alert. 

As I have been discussing, the exact track of this storm depends on a few key factors steering the storm. These factors include an area of high pressure in the Atlantic and a remnant trough of low pressure moving towards the Southeast US.

The European model was the one major model showing a more west track yesterday from western FL into the eastern Gulf. On its latest run it has shifted east. So lets check out why...

First image below is yesterdays European model at 18000ft in the atmosphere. This shows upper air disturbances. Focus on the piece of energy marked by X diving into the SE....

Now check out the same image but from the GFS model....

Notice on the GFS image this disturbance is further south earlier. This helps steer the storm more due north earlier than European. In simple terms think of it like a seesaw.  Since the euro was originally later with this disturbance the storm was more guided west from the high pressure in the Atlantic before it was allowed to move north.

I based my whole forecast on my expectations on how this evolution would unfold. So far so good but I will be the first to admit this still can change big time. 

Looking at latest models you can see how they maintain a very strong cat 4 or even 5 hurricane as this gets close to the US.

Here is the latest GFS...

New European which has shifted east from yesterday...

Both now follow my ideas but I warn this still can shift. Again, everyone from FL to the Carolinas needs to be on major alert here. 

Thats all for now, more to come keep checking in!