After making landfall as an upper-end Category 4 hurricane on Wednesday afternoon, Ian took its time traversing the Florida peninsula. It briefly weakened to a tropical storm, but the center of now Hurricane Ian re-emerged over the Atlantic Ocean midday Thursday. It's interacting with a mid-latitude trough that is stretching its cloud shield out to England. No, seriously... England!
This 3-day radar animation is quite amazing in what it covers in the lifecycle of a tropical cyclone. You can find this and others at http://bmcnoldy.rsmas.miami.edu/tropics/radar/
Although Ian is back over water, it's in a very different environment than it was before reaching Florida. It's now in high vertical wind shear and is well on its way to becoming an extratropical cyclone. But before it does so, it regained hurricane status today before making landfall in South Carolina midday Friday.
Regardless of the exact intensity, the outcome will be the same. It will create a fairly high storm surge of 4-7 feet in the central part of the state, as well as 6-10 inches of rain. This won't be nearly as severe of a landfall as the one in Cuba or Florida, but it is still extremely dangerous and life-threatening. Seven feet of ocean coming at you with angry waves on top is very serious.
The current suite of Hurricane Threat & Impacts is shown here, and the "cone of uncertainty" is overlaid for reference. Keep in mind that the cone is ONLY designed to show you where the center of the storm might track (with 2/3 probability). Impacts can and always do extend far beyond the cone.
Now that' we're headed for a bit of reprieve in activity, here's an update on where the season stands in terms of Accumulated Cyclone Energy. The current total is about 96% of average for this date if we use the past fifty years as the baseline. The very quiet first half of the season was met with a very active September (the average ACE September is 50 and we're at 74).
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