Where Hurricane Lee Is Now, and Where It Might Be Going

Hurricane Lee has grabbed the eye of forecasters and social media this week because the quickly intensifying storm strikes west throughout the open waters of the Atlantic.

It is simple to take a look at a map displaying a significant hurricane with a forecast path pointed instantly on the United States and suppose the East Coast is in for it. But as of Thursday morning, that situation was not probably the most possible final result. Even if it was, Lee wouldn’t arrive till late subsequent week, which is past the official forecast from the specialists on the National Hurricane Center.

Here’s what we all know in regards to the hurricane:

What is Lee’s present location and path?

As of 11 a.m. Thursday, Hurricane Lee was about 870 miles east of the Leeward Islands, within the northeastern Caribbean, and transferring west-northwest at 15 miles per hour. Its most sustained winds of 105 m.p.h. make it a Category 2 hurricane.

Dangerous surf circumstances generated by the storm will probably have an effect on the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Bahamas and Bermuda over the weekend, in accordance with the Hurricane Center.

How massive is that this storm going to get?

Lee strengthened from a Category 1 storm to a Category 2 over the course of some hours on Thursday, and is predicted to turn out to be a Category 3, with winds of at the very least 111 m.p.h. later within the day.

Rapid intensification and strengthening ought to proceed into the weekend, when Lee will probably attain its peak depth. As the storm strengthens its wind discipline will even increase, stretching how far hurricane-force winds lengthen from the middle.

What are the probabilities it can hit the U.S. East Coast?

There is a few likelihood, however it’s at the moment not the probably final result. It may additionally hit Canada or keep farther east and transfer throughout Bermuda.

When will we all know extra?

Obviously, the nearer we get to subsequent week the higher the forecasts can be. But by this weekend, forecasters must be getting a greater concept of the forecast path for Lee.

Tell me what the fashions present. (Also, what’s a spaghetti mannequin?)

One model of a mannequin final weekend advised that the East Coast might get hit, a chance that has lingered within the minds of some forecasters and newbie climate watchers, partially due to widespread social media hype.

But once you take a look at all of the variations of the mannequin, there’s not an awesome consensus on the place the middle of the hurricane will go after this weekend, with some outliers near the East Coast.

Sometimes a number of fashions are displayed on a single map with traces that plot the place that laptop simulation believes the middle of the storm can be 5, seven and even 14 days sooner or later. Known as spaghetti fashions, these mapped mannequin outputs get their identify from their resemblance to lengthy strands of pasta.

The nearer the traces are collectively, the extra confidence it offers forecasters in what the storm may do. For the subsequent few days, there’s a fairly dependable consensus that the storm will monitor northwest.

When the spaghetti traces unfold wider aside, forecasters have many extra prospects to cope with. There is quite a lot of unfold past this weekend, which is why this storm can be vital to control. Right now all the pieces is on the desk.

What has this yr’s hurricane season been like thus far?

We’re a little bit over midway by the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1 and runs by Nov. 30.

In late May, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted that there could be 12 to 17 named storms this yr, a “near-normal” quantity. On Aug. 10, NOAA officers revised their estimate upward, to 14 to 21 storms, and the previous few weeks have been busy.

Lee is the twelfth named storm — thirteenth for those who rely an unnamed storm in January that specialists on the Hurricane Center stated ought to have been named — to kind within the Atlantic. It can be the seventh since Aug. 20, when two tropical storms, Emily and Franklin, shaped. Every week later noticed the arrival of Tropical Storm Idalia, which made landfall alongside Florida’s Gulf Coast as a Category 3 hurricane on Aug. 30.

There is stable consensus amongst scientists that hurricanes have gotten extra highly effective due to local weather change. Although there may not be extra named storms general, the chance of main hurricanes is growing.

Climate change can be affecting the quantity of rain that storms can produce. In a warming world, the air can maintain extra moisture, which implies a named storm can maintain and produce extra rainfall, like Hurricane Harvey did in Texas in 2017, when some areas acquired greater than 40 inches of rain in lower than 48 hours.

Researchers have additionally discovered that, over the previous few many years, storms have slowed down, sitting over areas for longer.

When a storm slows down over water, the quantity of moisture the storm can take in will increase. When the storm slows over land, the quantity of rain that falls over a single location will increase; in 2019, for instance, Hurricane Dorian slowed to a crawl over the northwestern Bahamas, leading to a complete rainfall of twenty-two.84 inches in Hope Town throughout the storm.