Hurricane Dorian: Overnight forecast holding; models still split on long-term | WeatherTiger
Thursday morning finds Hurricane Dorian following a trajectory that will take it very close to Florida’s east coast over Labor Day weekend, but developments overnight have not yielded any better answers on where landfall will occur or Dorian’s longer-term fate.
Latest:Hurricane Dorian continues to strengthen; Florida expected to be hit with category 3 storm
As of the National Hurricane Center’s 5 a.m. advisory package, Hurricane Dorian is located about 150 miles north of Puerto Rico and continues plow northwest at about 13 mph. After deviating to the right of forecast track expectations continuously for the past two days, Dorian more or less has moved as expected overnight, following the NHC forecast track and consensus guidance.
Hurricane Dorian:Overnight model trend may be good news for North Florida | Analysis
Maximum sustained winds are now 85 mph, also steady since the 11 p.m. advisory. Based on overnight microwave imagery, it appears a pocket of dry air kept intensification in check overnight by opening Dorian’s developing eyewall to the east. Recent satellite data shows a more symmetrical core, so Dorian may be poised to continue intensifying this morning. A reconnaissance aircraft is en route to check on the storm, so we will know more later this morning.
What does this mean for North Florida?
In the short term, there are no major shifts to the NHC forecast or model guidance. Dorian will continue northwest for the next 36 hours before hooking a hard left on Friday north of the Bahamas, as high pressure expands west out of the Atlantic towards the southeastern U.S.
Overnight model guidance shows strong consensus between the GFS, Euro, UKMET and HWRF ensemble means through 72 hours, supporting a major hurricane near the northern Bahamas on Sunday morning.
In the longer term, the most notable change to the NHC forecast and model guidance is that Dorian is generally predicted to move more slowly in the three- to five-day range, with the hurricane decelerating on approach to Florida in response to weakening steering currents on the flank of the ridge. The official forecast calls for a Labor Day landfall of a Category 3 hurricane with 125 mph sustained winds on the east central Florida coast near Vero Beach, with all points from the Keys to Tallahassee to Brunswick, Georgia, within the five-day cone of uncertainty.
Slowing forward speed sometimes precedes a sharp turn, and though overnight model ensemble means are all close to the NHC official track through landfall, there remains a very large spread in potential tracks beyond Day 5, ranging from a turn up the east coast or the Florida peninsula to a track reaching west into the Gulf.
While it never pays to overinterpret single model cycles, a slower trend in forward speed is generally positive for the Gulf Coast, diminishing Dorian’s chances of extended time back over warm water.
Overall, the NHC forecast, observations and model guidance are holding serve on a major hurricane threat to the entire east coast of Florida from Hurricane Dorian over the weekend. I’ll be back with more coverage of the storm later today.
Keep watching the skies.
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Track the storm with a live map: Tropical Storm Dorian
Dr. Ryan Truchelut is co-founder and chief meteorologist at WeatherTiger, a Tallahassee-based start-up providing advanced weather and climate analytics, consulting, and forecasting solutions to enterprises large and small. Get in touch at ryan@weathertiger.com or follow along on Twitter (@wx_tiger) or Facebook.