Africa just keeps waving at us!!

Hurricane Earl, now a very powerful category 4 storm, refused the dry air that infused earlier this morning, and came through it just a strong. I am concerned for the impact that Hurricane Earl will have on the coast. The good news is that right now, he is a fast moving storm, so the impact won’t last for a long time, but the size, the power and the proximity to land will impact interests along the east coast, whether he comes ashore or not. Already States of Emergency have been declared from North Carolina, up into Maryland. They are still not ruling out a landfall. We’ve seen storms do very unpredictable things as they approach land. A forecast is just an expectation. It is imperative that people prepare for the unexpected. Only 11 mph distinguish between what Earl is now and a catastrophic category 5 hurricane. Sadly, I think some level of devastation might be unavoidable. I pray that people are heeding the evacuation orders, that they have rushed preparations to completion and that impact is less than expected. Go east, Earl!

Fortunately, it looks like Tropical Storm Fiona is too caught up in the outflow of Earl to make much of an impact. The expectation there is that Fiona will quickly move eastward, possibly moving over Bermuda, but she should not pose a threat to the US coastline. The one many have a hard eye on is Tropical Storm Gaston. He is currently just hanging out in the Atlantic, but models are doing some scary things with that system, potentially even moving him into the warm waters of the Gulf of Mexico. That is far from ideal. He is already forecast to become a hurricane before reaching the Lesser Antilles. Everyone has an eye on Gaston… that is while keeping the other on Earl. I’m not even going to get into the next wave that has rolled off the coast of Africa. Could we have Hermine???

Have a beautiful day.
~Dewdrop