The next 10 to 15 days may be the most dangerous periods of the hurricane season

Fortunately for the Big Bend, to the north and east of Apalachicola, the showers were only intermittent, with typically 0.5-1 "of rain across Tallahassee.

TO CLOSE

The International Space Station broadcast a video of Tropical Storm Gordon as it flew over the northern Gulf of Mexico.
USA TODAY & # 39; HUI

The remains of Gordon are inland over the Great South and will carry heavy rains in the Ohio Valley this weekend, but there is still much to discuss in the Atlantic. First, Hurricane Florence challenged shear aloft and sea surface temperatures intensified rapidly until the first major hurricane of 2018, with maximum winds of about 130 km / h.

Despite a wider environment, Florence has recently been able to boil down to a protective bubble, for want of anything better. This has allowed it to strengthen by nearly 50 km / h in the last 24 hours, demonstrating once again that hurricane intensity remains a major forecasting challenge.

The International Space Station broadcast a video of tropical storm Gordon, which stopped in time as it circled the northern Gulf of Mexico on September 5, 2018. (Photo: PHOTO CONTRIBUTED BY NASA)

It is likely that Florence will experience short-term fluctuations, but the system that remains a major hurricane over the next five to seven days or more is an important possibility as it moves into warmer waters and a favorable environment for the future. next week.

Florence is currently moving northwest on the central Atlantic at about 13 mph. A gradual pullback to a more westerly course is likely within two to three days, which will bring the hurricane to a breach in the road in terms of steering currents.

If we take Florence's position in the afternoon of Wednesday, it would be easy to think, on the sole basis of climatology, that a track at sea is a slam dunk. Of the 62 storms and tropical cyclones that occurred within 200 miles of Florence's current location, only two (Esther '61 and Isabel '03) reached the eastern coast of the United States. In short, Florence is very far north, because its distance from the United States is a threat.

However, climatology is what you expect and the weather is what you get. The story is not so simple.

During the weekend, a front will fall in the western Atlantic, while strong pressure will affect the east coast. Depending on the distance between Florence and the North, she might move to the West Atlantic during this first dip.

However, there is a good chance that the trough does not completely capture the hurricane, and Florence returns to the west next week as the high-pressure ridge intensifies to the north. If this is the case, this scheme would potentially allow Florence to approach the southeastern or mid-Atlantic coast at the end of next week.

This high uncertainty is reflected in the model's orientations, with a distribution of members throughout the afternoon during week 2, from North Florida to the open Atlantic Ocean, northeast of Bermuda.

In my opinion, it is unlikely that Florence will actually reach the East Coast, especially since the models do not do a good job of capturing the initial intensity of Florence and that a stronger storm could spread sooner. at this long delay.

Elsewhere, another tropical wave east of Florence is showing signs of organization today and will slowly turn into tropical storm Helen in the next two to five days. A second tropical wave off the African coast in a few days could also take place early next week. I am concerned about these waves following Florence, especially if they develop more slowly and therefore move further west with the low-altitude trade winds for an extended period.

Although the direction pattern is uncertain and highly dependent on Florence's final trajectory, the strong ridge that the sets suggest will be in place over the central-eastern United States for at least 10 to 14 days. This model of direction displaces the storms that reach (or develop in the west) the Lesser Antilles towards the gulf or the southeast coast, as Gordon has shown this week.

Specifically, an anomalous 500-millibar ridge located over the Great Lakes is a pattern associated with other historic high slaughter periods in the United States, as in 2004, when Florida was hit by four major hurricanes.