Bermuda is under a hurricane warning this afternoon as Hurricane Joaquin makes a very close call with the tiny island that sits 650 miles east of the United States. It’s rare for hurricanes to make a direct landfall on Bermuda due to its tiny size; last year, however, two hurricanes—Fay and Gonzalo—made landfall on the island in one week.
An intense and historic flood disaster—unrelated to Hurricane Joaquin, but influenced by it—continues to unfold across the Carolinas this afternoon, with South Carolina taking the brunt of the tropical deluge. Some communities near Charleston have recorded more than two feet of rain in the past three days.
Good news! We’re pretty sure that Hurricane Joaquin is going to head out to sea, with the chance of landfall on the United States fairly low at this point. The bad news is that there will still be more than a foot of rain in parts of the Carolinas, and stiff onshore winds and high waves will create coastal flooding in the Mid-Atlantic much like a storm surge would.
This 5.50 megabyte GIF shows a 15-hour infrared satellite loop of Hurricane Joaquin as it slammed the Bahamas between 5:15 AM and 8:15 PM EDT on Thursday. The hurricane is a category four on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale with sustained winds of 130 MPH, and it could strengthen a bit before weakening on Saturday. Joaquin is the strongest hurricane to hit the Bahamas since Floyd in 1999, which raked the island chain with sustained winds of 155 MPH.
While we’ve stressed over the eventual track of powerful Hurricane Joaquin over the next few days, a concerning number of people may not be aware that a significant—potentially devastating—flash flood event will take place with or without the hurricane coming close to land. Many spots could see more than a foot of rain this weekend.
Hurricane Joaquin is a category three hurricane tonight with 115 MPH winds, and all indications point toward further strengthening. The 11:00 PM advisory from the NHC says it’ll be a category four with 140 MPH winds by this time Thursday. There’s still a decent chance it could make landfall along the East Coast this weekend. We’re going to see a major flooding event regardless of Joaquin’s whereabouts—a potential landfall will only make things much worse.
The latest forecast for Hurricane Joaquin puts it on an unnerving path toward the East Coast, but the track is far from certain right now. This week was going to be a flooding nightmare anyway—the hurricane is just rubbing salt in the wound. You need to prepare now for a significant, potentially life-threatening weather event later this week and this weekend.
A complicated weather pattern will likely dump tons of rain on the East Coast later this week and this weekend. A wide range of possibilities could unfold—stretching from scattered showers to the unlikely event of a hurricane threatening land—so just about everyone who lives east of the Appalachian Mountains needs to watch the forecast closely.
Tropical Storm Joaquin formed in the western Atlantic Ocean this evening. The cone of uncertainty covers the coast from North Carolina to Connecticut, and there is considerable uncertainty in the storm’s future track. We have to watch this system very closely. I’ll have an update on Tuesday once the morning models roll in and we have a better idea of what’s going on.
