Hurricane Lee has grabbed the eye of forecasters and social media this week because the quickly intensifying storm strikes west throughout the open waters of the Atlantic.
It’s simple to take a look at a map exhibiting a serious hurricane with a forecast path pointed immediately at the US and assume the East Coast is in for it. However as of Thursday evening, that state of affairs was not essentially the most possible final result. Even when it was, Lee wouldn’t arrive till late subsequent week, which is past the official forecast from the consultants on the Nationwide Hurricane Heart.
Right here’s what we all know in regards to the hurricane:
What’s Lee’s present location and path?
As of 5 a.m. Friday, Hurricane Lee was about 630 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands, that are within the northeastern Caribbean, and the storm was shifting west-northwest at 14 miles per hour. Its most sustained winds of 165 m.p.h. make it a Class 5 storm, the primary of this Atlantic hurricane season.
It at present doesn’t threaten any land, and there are not any coastal watches or warnings in impact, however harmful surf circumstances generated by the storm are anticipated to have an effect on components of the Caribbean on Friday and many of the U.S. East Coast beginning Sunday, in keeping with the Hurricane Heart.
Meteorologists are pretty assured that Lee will keep north of the Caribbean. A number of forecast fashions counsel the storm will veer north, however it stays unclear if and when that may occur — and whether or not it turns earlier than threatening the US. In a broadcast forecast dialogue, the Hurricane Heart stated, “It’s approach too quickly to know what degree of impacts, if any, Lee may need alongside the U.S. East Coast, Atlantic Canada, or Bermuda late subsequent week, notably for the reason that hurricane is anticipated to decelerate significantly over the southwestern Atlantic.”
Go right here for the newest maps and trackers as Lee strikes via the Atlantic.
How large is that this storm going to get?
Lee intensified quickly on Thursday, with its wind speeds doubling from 80 to 160 m.p.h. It’s anticipated to stay a serious hurricane (Class 3 or greater, with wind speeds of at the very least 111 m.p.h.) via early subsequent week, in keeping with the Hurricane Heart.
What are the probabilities it is going to hit the U.S. East Coast?
There’s some likelihood, however it’s at present not the seemingly final result. It may additionally hit Canada or keep farther east and transfer throughout Bermuda.
When will we all know extra?
Clearly, the nearer we get to subsequent week the higher the forecasts will likely be. However by this weekend, forecasters needs to be getting a greater thought of the forecast path for Lee.
Inform me what the fashions present. (Additionally, what’s a spaghetti mannequin?)
One model of a mannequin final weekend recommended that the East Coast may get hit, a risk that has lingered within the minds of some forecasters and novice climate watchers, partially due to widespread social media hype.
However while you take a look at all of the variations of the mannequin, there’s not an awesome consensus on the place the middle of the hurricane will go after this weekend, with some outliers near the East Coast.
Typically, a number of fashions are displayed on a single map with traces that plot the place that laptop simulation believes the middle of the storm will likely be 5, seven and even 14 days sooner or later. Referred to as spaghetti fashions, these mapped mannequin outputs get their title from their resemblance to lengthy strands of pasta.
The nearer the traces are to at least one one other, the extra confidence it provides forecasters in what the storm would possibly do. For the subsequent few days, there’s a fairly dependable consensus that the storm will observe northwest.
When the spaghetti traces unfold wider aside, forecasters have many extra potentialities to take care of. There’s quite a lot of unfold past this weekend, which is why this storm will likely be necessary to control. Proper now, every thing is on the desk.
What has this yr’s hurricane season been like up to now?
We’re a bit of over midway via the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1 and runs via Nov. 30.
In late Might, the Nationwide Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that there could be 12 to 17 named storms this yr, a “near-normal” quantity. On Aug. 10, NOAA officers revised their estimate upward, to 14 to 21 storms, and the previous couple of weeks have been busy.
When it shaped on Tuesday, Lee turned the twelfth named storm of this yr’s Atlantic season. (And the thirteenth in case you rely an unnamed storm in January that consultants on the Hurricane Heart stated ought to have been named.) It is usually the eighth since Aug. 20, when two tropical storms, Emily and Franklin, shaped. Per week later noticed the arrival of Tropical Storm Idalia, which made landfall alongside Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Class 3 hurricane on Aug. 30.
Tropical Storm Margot shaped on Thursday and is anticipated to strengthen right into a hurricane over the weekend.
There’s strong consensus amongst scientists that hurricanes have gotten extra highly effective due to local weather change. Though there won’t be extra named storms general, the probability of main hurricanes is rising.
Local weather change can be affecting the quantity of rain that storms can produce. In a warming world, the air can maintain extra moisture, which implies a named storm can maintain and produce extra rainfall, like Hurricane Harvey did in Texas in 2017, when some areas obtained greater than 40 inches of rain in lower than 48 hours.
Researchers have additionally discovered that, over the previous few a long time, storms have slowed down, sitting over areas for longer.
When a storm slows down over water, the quantity of moisture the storm can take in will increase. When the storm slows over land, the quantity of rain that falls over a single location will increase; in 2019, for instance, Hurricane Dorian slowed to a crawl over the northwestern Bahamas, leading to a complete rainfall of twenty-two.84 inches in Hope City throughout the storm.