While we will have a small/subtle cool down today, we still have to be patient for the big game changer to arrive.
Yesterday, we ended up hitting 90 degrees in Norfolk and a few other spots.
Today there is a weak cool front that is slipping through the region. It is also slowly falling apart.
We’ll develop a light north wind today. It should feel pretty nice, but it will still be warm for this time of year. High temps will be in the mid-upper 80s.
We’ll be slightly drier with lots of sunshine.
Tomorrow the winds will slowly turn to out of the south again. So we’ll heat up to the upper 80s with a few 90s inland. Humidity will increase again. So the heat indices will be in the low 90s. Meanwhile they will be hitting more 100s over portions of the Midwest.
By Thursday the stronger cold front will be approaching from the northwest. I’m seeing different timing of the front by the models and the forecasts. Some things suggest the front won’t arrive until the evening, and so our high temperatures hit the low 90s. Some other forecasts suggest we’ll start cooling down through the day, and that high temps will only make it to the low-mid 80s. I’m going with upper 80s for now with a few 90s over North Carolina. There may be a few rain showers, but no model shows much rain in the region.
Regardless, the much cooler and drier air is expected to arrive on Friday. High temps will be in the low 70s. There may be some upper 60s in the region.
Skies will be mostly sunny. This is the first full day of Fall, and it will feel like it. We’ll stay cool and dry on Saturday. Lows will be in the 50s. Highs will be in the 70s. We’ll be be in the 80s by Sunday. The humidity will drop and stay down Friday through Sunday.
Now lets talk about Fiona. It has left a long trail of damage and destruction over the last couple of days between the Lesser Antilles, Puerto Rico, and the Dominican Republic. This morning it was a category 3 hurricane churning near the Turks and Caicos islands.
The hurricane became the first major hurricane of the season. It is experiencing some wind shear. However, it hasn’t weakened the storm since the overnight. The system will now move to the north/northeast. It will then likely pass to the west of Bermuda.
How far to the the west of Bermuda is still in question. The models are tightly clustered, but there is some wiggle room.
The hurricane is expected to be a category 4 storm at that latitude. So hopefully it goes enough west to spare the island the worst weather. A large upper level trough coming into the eastern U.S. will be the driver of Fiona by that point. After passing Bermuda Fiona will go northward. It will head toward the Canadian maritimes. It could hit Nova Scotia or Newfoundland as a weaker hurricane or a strong nor’easter.
We will have some higher waves here along the east coast by Friday. I’ll go into more detail on that in tomorrow’s weather blog.
There are 2 other tropical disturbances that we are watching. There is one in the north/central Atlantic. That one is moving generally north. It does have a high chance of formation, but it should be short-lived, and it should stay out to sea. (It is expected to become tropical depression 8 by 11am). The short-lived forecast still stands, and it will stay out to sea.
However, the other one in the middle of the Atlantic will be moving to the west/northwest. Even though it only has a medium chance of formation in the next few days that will be one to really watch. The long range GFS and European models have it moving to the west/northwest and strengthening. Eventually they move it into the Gulf of Mexico, possibly as a hurricane.
If it gets into the Gulf, then there won’t be much to stop it from strengthening more. So stay tuned for updates on that.
It seems like lately there have been a lot of large natural disasters. We’ve been following Fiona this week. Over the weekend Alaska got hit with a major storm. Then this morning there was a sizable earthquake in Mexico. Then there was also a major typhoon in Japan recently. Hopefully, things will calm down world-wide soon.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler
