Tropical Storm (Hurricane?) Ophelia

As of the 5 p.m. NHC Advisory Tropical Storm Ophelia now has 70 mph winds. It is strengthening and central pressure has dropped to 986 mb. The circulation center is becoming well defined and the radar is very impressive. A Hurricane Watch is now up for NC which means they believe this could very well be a hurricane by next Advisory or overnight.

Since this is stronger than projected originally we should probably keep a close eye on its potential impacts here, especially wind and heavy rain. Either way tomorrow should be an interesting day for observations.

Kudos to Rb who seems to have nailed this more rapid intensification, and maybe even the slightly more eastern track.

Conditions already deteriorating up and down the Southeast and southern mid-Atlantic coast. Landfall still 12 hours away.

Current projected landfall is about 4 a.m. near Beaufort NC. Earlier they projected 70 mph winds at landfall (which it is already up to 12 hours early). I'm thinking it will be slightly stronger than that by 4 a.m.

Bill what time are we expecting rain to move in, tonight, tomorrow? Its crazy how far the outer bands stretch north.

Right now we could see rainfall by dawn tomorrow, although I think heavier rain would move in later in the morning to near midday.

Yeah figured so no garage sale hunting and looks like next weekend too snd this is primo time year for me stock up for holidays. And after october its over till march or april. I gotta move somewhere they have sales year round lol.

In regards to ophelia with the change in intensity, that could have ripple impacts for the future of ophelia too. Including track possibly.

TWC says 46 mph wind gusts already in Norfolk VA. That’s a couple hundred miles from storm center.

billg315 wrote:TWC says 46 mph wind gusts already in Norfolk VA. That’s a couple hundred miles from storm center.

impressive windfield.

billg315 wrote:TWC says 46 mph wind gusts already in Norfolk VA. That’s a couple hundred miles from storm center.

Already gusting 40+ here, Bill, so can confirm that’s probably accurate.

We’ll see what the future holds, but I’m feeling pretty good about the intensity aspect of my forecast. The track forecast is definitely out on a limb right now though, and that limb is starting to break some fiber haha

Yeah Rb, it looks to make landfall in NC, but, I think earlier models of it heading to central PA were also overdone to the west. This looks to me to stay pretty close to the seaboard as it heads north - albeit inland.

billg315 wrote:Yeah Rb, it looks to make landfall in NC, but, I think earlier models of it heading to central PA were also overdone to the west. This looks to me to stay pretty close to the seaboard as it heads north - albeit inland.

I can’t say that I disagree, and by later tonight if I don’t see anything notable I’ll jump ship from my forecast track. If the GFS is right, I might get a second chance anyway hahaha freakin’ model -_- lol

I’ll say one thing, we just had a wicked sunset here. These sailors got this one wrong lol

jmanley32 wrote:Yeah figured so no garage sale hunting and looks like next weekend too snd this is primo time year for me stock up for holidays. And after october its over till march or april. I gotta move somewhere they have sales year round lol.

In regards to ophelia with the change in intensity, that could have ripple impacts for the future of ophelia too. Including track possibly.

Oct 14 townwide garage here in Hazlet

NHC 8 pm Advisory: Winds holding at 70 mph, pressure dropped slightly to 984 mb. Heading NNW at 12 mph. Still Tropical Storm strength just shy of Hurricane status. We’ll see if it gets there by landfall in about 10 hours.

We have friends in Beaufort it's disheartening to hear they are the bullseye..good luck everyone tom..fingers crossed...we are wheels up on 2 min
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Latest radar.

gusting to about 15mph here on the north shore of LI. Let's see what comes in tomorrow.

aiannone wrote:gusting to about 15mph here on the north shore of LI. Let's see what comes in tomorrow.

Wind reports to our south, even far from storm center, are pretty impressive, so I think we’ll get some good wind gusts from this, especially right on the shore lines.

Dry air on its eastern Flank, IF can fight this off it can intensify. Let's see what the track holds and how far N it can get.

billg315 wrote:

aiannone wrote:gusting to about 15mph here on the north shore of LI. Let's see what comes in tomorrow.

Wind reports to our south, even far from storm center, are pretty impressive, so I think we’ll get some good wind gusts from this, especially right on the shore lines.

Yupp current dry air being injected might kill some of the heaviest rain but the wind field should continue to expand.

2 am Advisory largely unchanged. Current winds 70 mph with a pressure of 984 mb, moving NNW at about 12. Probably won’t strengthen much between now and landfall, but Hurricane Watch remains for NC as it wouldn’t take much to reach 74 mph and we’re still about 3 hours from landfall.
The slow progression forecast for Ophelia is interesting. Latest forecast cone only has the center of the storm reaching NJ by early Monday. That is a crawl. If we got heavy rain throughout that would be a lot of rain, but as Scott pointed out, there is likely a long lull in this between this evening and Sunday morning. That should suppress the rain totals.
However, if that thing keeps spinning onshore winds at the Jersey shore from now until Monday . . that’s a lot of potential beach erosion and coastal flooding.

Current radar. Heavy band just now reaching Cape May.

just starting to rain now 4:30am 6 miles south/west of Giants/Jets stadium.