Hurricane season ‘begins’ tomorrow — but it’s already off to a head start
- Visit the Tropical Atlantic Headquarters.
- Subscribe to get these updates emailed to you.
- Follow me on Twitter
31 May 2016
Hurricane season ‘begins’ tomorrow — but it’s already off to a head start
The 2016 Atlantic hurricane season begins on June 1... I go over some new and updated products, impressive records, and the list of names we'll be using in this post on the Capital Weather Gang blog:
Hurricane season ‘begins’ tomorrow — but it’s already off to a head start
Hurricane season ‘begins’ tomorrow — but it’s already off to a head start
30 May 2016
Bonnie weakens and stalls over South Carolina
Tropical Depression 2 was upgraded to Tropical Storm Bonnie on Saturday afternoon, and made landfall near Charleston, SC at about 9am EDT on Sunday after weakening back to a tropical depression. This was the first tropical cyclone to make landfall on the U.S. since Tropical Storm Bill hit Texas on June 16th, 2015.
As expected, it was not a very eventful landfall, just a lot of rain. The heaviest rain fell to the north of Savannah, and peaked out at about 8-9", resulting in significant flooding.
What's a bit unusual is that Tropical Depression Bonnie is still lingering in basically the same location, but a northeastward motion is expected to begin today, taking the shallow and poorly-organized cyclone over the North Carolina coastline.
It is nothing to be concerned about though, other than the sporadic heavy rain showers associated with it. I have a regional-scale two-day radar loop of Bonnie at http://andrew.rsmas.miami.edu/bmcnoldy/tropics/bonnie16/Bonnie_28-30May16_southeast.gif
 |
| Satellite and radar images at the time of Bonnie's landfall on Sunday morning. |
What's a bit unusual is that Tropical Depression Bonnie is still lingering in basically the same location, but a northeastward motion is expected to begin today, taking the shallow and poorly-organized cyclone over the North Carolina coastline.
It is nothing to be concerned about though, other than the sporadic heavy rain showers associated with it. I have a regional-scale two-day radar loop of Bonnie at http://andrew.rsmas.miami.edu/bmcnoldy/tropics/bonnie16/Bonnie_28-30May16_southeast.gif
 |
| Visible satellite image from Monday morning showing a low-level swirl (Bonnie) over South Carolina. |
- Visit the Tropical Atlantic Headquarters.
- Subscribe to get these updates emailed to you.
- Follow me on Twitter
28 May 2016
TD2 to hit South Carolina on Sunday morning
On Friday afternoon, the area of interest was upgraded to Tropical Depression 2 based on aircraft reconnaissance data. As of 3pm on Saturday, it is still a depression, but is right on the threshold of becoming Tropical Storm Bonnie (it's a difference of sustained winds increasing from 35mph to 40mph).
The center of the storm is 150 miles southeast of Charleston and heavy rain is already onshore.
It is moving toward the northwest at 13mph, and that motion will bring the center to the coastline on Sunday morning, though it won't be a very dramatic landfall. The biggest impact will be rain, and that is already occurring; however, a tropical storm warning is in effect for the entire South Carolina coast.
It's passing over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, but as you can see from the satellite image at the top, it is strongly sheared which is limiting intensification. That could change somewhat in the 18 hours between this writing and when it reaches the coastline. The strongest winds in Charleston will be from about midnight through noon on Sunday and could gust to 45-50mph.
I have a long updating radar loop from Charleston available at http://andrew.rsmas.miami.edu/bmcnoldy/tropics/bonnie16/Bonnie_28-30May16_CLX.gif
(it has Bonnie in the filename, but it is not named yet)
The center of the storm is 150 miles southeast of Charleston and heavy rain is already onshore.
It is moving toward the northwest at 13mph, and that motion will bring the center to the coastline on Sunday morning, though it won't be a very dramatic landfall. The biggest impact will be rain, and that is already occurring; however, a tropical storm warning is in effect for the entire South Carolina coast.
It's passing over the warm waters of the Gulf Stream, but as you can see from the satellite image at the top, it is strongly sheared which is limiting intensification. That could change somewhat in the 18 hours between this writing and when it reaches the coastline. The strongest winds in Charleston will be from about midnight through noon on Sunday and could gust to 45-50mph.
I have a long updating radar loop from Charleston available at http://andrew.rsmas.miami.edu/bmcnoldy/tropics/bonnie16/Bonnie_28-30May16_CLX.gif
(it has Bonnie in the filename, but it is not named yet)
- Visit the Tropical Atlantic Headquarters.
- Subscribe to get these updates emailed to you.
- Follow me on Twitter
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)