Hurricane Henri to Impact Northeast Sunday

 Good evening. It has been a while since my last post but we got a big weather situation on tap for later this weekend. Tropical Storm Henri is currently sitting off of the east coast of the United States and is forecasted to move north than make a turn towards the Long Island area. The model solutions have been quite spread last few days, but now they are starting to converge on this Long Island solution. It has been a long time since we have had a hurricane hit this region and its safe to say we are overdue. If things pan out as expected, we can see major coastal flooding issues and damage from this storm. 

Lets take a look...

Here is satellite imagery of Tropical Storm Henri...

It is currently a tropical storm and is forecasted to potentially reach a category 1 or 2 Hurricane status right before it makes Landfall Sunday.

Here is National Hurricane Center forecast....

This storm was initially tracking to hit Cape Cod or just to the east but over the last 24 hours some key things have happened to cause all the models to show this storm making the left turn. All major models are now showing this...

GFS...

European...

North American Model...

You can see how these model are showing landfall somewhere between central Long Island to Eastern CT and RI.

There still is quite the degree of spread however as some models show a more west track then what is even seen here...

Above are the hurricane model forecast track spread for the storm. Notice that western cluster. The next 24 hours will be key to determine if those more western solutions have merit. What we would need to see is the storm start to strengthen more rapidly which would support that western solution. 

This whole storm track comes down to what is going on in the upper atmosphere. We currently have a blocking pattern in place with high pressure to the north steering this storm towards the coast and a trough incoming from the west that is helping capture and pull the storm in...

A better way of showing this is the animation below. Notice how the red or high pressure to the north is trending stronger which helps push the storm more west...

At this time I think this hits the center of Long Island. The more westward solution can happen but sometimes these models over estimate the strength of the storm. I also think this hits as at least a category 1 Hurricane with sustained winds 75mph plus and very bad coastal flooding. This is a situation to take very seriously. 

Here is the projected tropical storm wind coverage on Sunday (above 39mph sustained)...

Do not be surprised to see this shift a little bit more west.

Stay tuned. Tomorrow morning I will have a more impact specific post as we finitize this track.