stardate 202211.09 …………. 2245 est
I was really hoping not to spend a lot of time focusing on Hurricane NICOLE because as a one-man operation …my attention has already begun to shift towards the winter season which looks increasingly like it’s going to have an early start in the eastern half of the CONUS. Indeed I was sort of hoping that NICOLE was going to stay a subtropical system. But as you will see it has clearly developed some tropical characteristics In the last 18 hours although NICOLE Remains a rather weak hurricane. In fact as there are no observations at the surface that I have seen gusting up to Hurricane force on this Wednesday evening.
We start off with the 10 p.m. update from the Hurricane Center showing the track which seems very reasonable and in very high agreement.
The visible satellite image at noon did show that the central dense overcast was trying to develop a warm “spot” or eye that is partially obscured by high clouds as NICOLE moved into the Bahamas. The image on the right is from 1030 PM WED satellite picture clearly shows a large eye at the center of the system.
This is the infrared image as of 10 p.m. and we can see that almost all of the convection is only around the northern semicircle of the system and the strongest winds are also not anywhere near the low-level Center.
Despite the disorganized and untypical structure of the system NICOLE clearly is a hurricane. there are reports of surface winds up to 75 knots or 80 miles an hour can the pressure appears to be as low as 982mb on the Recon flights.
But as you can see the strongest winds are clearly located far away from the low-level Center. In my opinion that NICOLE hybrid system,
The RADAR image as of 11pm clearly shows a closed structured eyewall that is open on the SE side and the strongest convection again is located well to the W, NW, N, and NE of the system.
As forecasting tropical storms and hurricanes go. NICOLE’s track does not offer any real surprises. This image shows the upper air pattern as of Thursday morning. NICOLE located on the central Florida coast with a massive Ridge located north of the hurricane dominating the eastern US. But there was also a major trough coming into the upper Plains.
This is the GFS surface map valid as of Thursday afternoon and Friday morning. The model agreement with the GFS and all of the other models are quite strong and it shows that NICOLE is going to swing out to the West Coast of Florida before finally turning to the N and tracking very close to Tallahassee. From there it turns NE into central Georgia on Friday morning. Because NICOLE is going to reach the West Coast of Florida before it finally turns to the N, the band of the heaviest rains will shift was NICOLE begins to make its move up the East Coast.
In this next image we can see how the Major Trough comes in from the Plains into the Midwest …. weakening the western flank of the strong Ridge in the Midwest and East Coast. The SW winds ahead of the Trough as it moves towards the Mississippi Valley begins to bend NICOLE to the N, then NE. The image on the right valid as of Friday night shows the Trough across the Plains and the Midwest has become quite expansive as it pushes rapidly eastward. Itt has captured NICOLE and is driving it rapidly up the East Coast.
Here we can see the surface e map valid for early Saturday morning from the GFS and the European models and again the agreement here is quite pronounced. Notice that the heaviest rains are clearly located west of Interstate 95 and across the spine of the Appalachian Mountains from eastern North Carolina, through southwest Virginia, eastern Kentucky, western Maryland, West Virginia, western and central Pennsylvania, western and northern New York State and northern New England.
If you look at the rainfall amounts, we can see that rainfall totals of 1 inch or less across Boston, New York, Connecticut, Philadelphia, New Jersey, Baltimore, DC, the Delmarva, central and eastern Virginia, and central and eastern North Carolina.
The GFS model shows the same sort of thing very much.
There will be reinforcing cold front on November 15–16 which will bring rain to much of the East Coast …perhaps some snow in the mountains of New York and New England and the Great Lakes and then the potential for early-season more significant winter event around November 19–20