I’ll start in the tropics today. Then we’ll get to the local weather.
Last night tropical storm Marco made landfall around the mouth of the Mississippi River. It weakened to a depression as it skirted the Louisiana coast. However, This morning tropical depression Marco had fallen apart officially, even though that may have happened last night a few hours after landfall. The thunderstorms had been pushing away from the center since yesterday, and the actual center had been exposed for a while. It didn’t bring too much rain to the region. So it basically had little impact on the Gulf Coast. However, tropical storm Laura is likely going to be a big problem for the coast.
Laura is now a hurricane. It is moving away from Cuba over the open waters of the Gulf of Mexico. The water temps there are in the mid-upper 80s.
That is more than enough to cause a tropical system to strengthen. Also, there is not much wind shear in that region. So I expect Laura to fire up quickly. I wouldn’t be surprised if it becomes a cat 2 today. And possibly even a cat 3 sooner than forecast. Luckily, there are only a couple of models which predict the storm to be higher than a category 3, but that is a possibility. The storm is forecast to track northwest, and then take a northerly turn. The latest forecast puts Laura near the Texas/Louisiana border early Thursday morning. Possibly as a category 3 hurricane.
After that point it will move north and quickly weaken. It will then be a tropical depression as it moves northeast and then east through the Tennessee River Valley.
After that point it should be mainly a rainmaker. However, there are a couple of different scenarios that could happen as far as our forecast is concerned. The GFS model has the remnants of Laura getting absorbed into a non-tropical low over New York on Saturday. Then we would get rain and (some) wind in the area from a water-loaded cold front early Sunday morning. Here is what the GFS shows for rainfall through that time.
In contrast, the European model keeps the low going, but it would likely be non tropical as it moves through here. However, it also has a big area of rain with some brief gusty winds. Here is what it shows for early Sunday morning.
Both scenarios kick the system out by late Sunday morning. We would then have some very nice weather behind it. It’s still early for the specific details for our region, and all of this could still easily change. So stay tuned for updates.
Locally today we have high pressure offshore with a cool front to the north.
We’ve gotten rid of a lot of the clouds that lingered yesterday. So we will definitely heat up more today. High temps will be in the low-mid 90s. The heat index will be in the mid-upper 90s. There should be a nice breeze though out of the west. By this evening the cool front will sink down into our area. There will definitely be some strong storms to our north. A couple of those strong storms may survive as they move into Hampton Roads. However, they should fall apart as they drop more to the south. There is a marginal risk for severe weather for Hampton Roads A slight risk to our north towards the Northern Neck and Accomack County.
Tomorrow we’ll have some nice weather behind the front. We’ll be partly sunny with high temps in the mid-upper 80s. The breeze will be out of the north. On Thursday the front will swing back north as a warm front. We’ll be hot and humid again with high temps in the mid 90s. The heat index will be in the upper 90s to near 100. We’ll be partly cloudy with an isolated pm shower or storm. We’ll have similar weather on Friday. By Saturday we may see some rain from the remnants of Laura. The timing on the models vary though. So it could be late Saturday, or the rain may not start up until late Saturday night into Sunday morning. I do think we will be looking at a cooler and drier pattern form Sunday into next week. I am reeeeealllly looking forward to that. Stay tuned for updates.
Meteorologist: Jeremy Wheeler