9 PM UPDATED - NY City, Long Island and Cape Cod in the Cone Now at 11 AM Henri Knocking on New England's Door on Some Models. NWS Shows TS Conditions for Provinctown This Weekend. Grace Does Cayman Islands Before More Landfalls. Both Close to Hurricane Strength. A Look at African Waves & SAL...

That graphic pulled Wesst a lot today.

Compare it with my discussion from 7 AM.

Today has been a day of fast moving developments in the troipics with regard to Henri. I said days ago the area was being ignored and that was true. Why? Not much model support? Nice, but models are often slow to pick up on this sort of development (vs a Westbound African Wave) and it wasn't that surprising to me. Also, the water off of the Mid Atlantic is unusually warm this year and with a storm like Fred dying out over the East Coast with it's moisture feed widening out and wetting up the atmosphere it's likely should a storm form and get blocked by a building high pressure area that combined with the remnants of Fred helping to draw it in towards the coast it's a no brainer it bears watching carefully. 

I wrote about this early this morning and as the day played out the NHC tried to keep up with the models trending West, the building ridge pushing Henri South of West all day despite the NHC insisting it would soon turn West. As this is an update you can read what I wrote down below. The further South this goes the closer it can get to the coastline from NC to NE while it waits for a chance to go out to sea. Will it get out to sea without being blocked and impacting land directly? I don't know for sure but I cannot rule out that some part of the Mid Atlantic feels the breath of Henri way more than they want to... beach issues such as beach safety, erosion and even ships at sea IS an issue. Remember that the ship the Bounty went down off the coast of NC during Hurricane Sandy that stayed offshore but did take the ship down to the sea with it.

Yes I did say Sandy. Hmnn.

Speaking of the new shifted cone...
Parts of NYC and Long Island are in the cone.

Compare and contrast with 5 PM below. 

Grace is doing what we expectd her to do so no change there. More on Grace Thursday morning. Currently there are planes flying around the environment out ahead of Henri to try and get a better forecast done as well as weather balloons gathering data to give a better long range forecast. The ridge building in is so strong that it is still moving just South of West. And the whole NE is filling in with moisture that can be a magnet to a developing hurricane or strong Tropical Storm. Check out the image below and know we have a problem. More on Thursday. Compare and contrast this update with today's evolving developments.

Dark dry air above to it's East and NE blocks Henri.

Way upu in Canada another thin high builds out over it.

To the South is the flattened moisture feed from Grace.

And tons of moisture (lower pressure) to the NE of Grace.

Hopefully it finds a way to miss the coast.

But that cannot be promised currently.

Stay tuned.

Keep reading please if yuou have not.

Thanks, Bobbi

***

Cape Cod and parts of RI in the Cone.

NHC opened that door I wrote about earlier.

Please read discussion below the 11 AM update.

Also still expected to be a Hurricane.

Currently moving a bit S of West...

...but forecast movement to be West by NHC

Hurricane Grace from Perfect Storm fame...

Again it's a two part process that is upping the ante that some part of New England could deal directly with Henri in that .... the high blocks but the low pressure from the remnants of Fred leaves a weakness for Herni to pull more West than normal ...Sandy Irene and others have done this dance move. While I think this is a NE or South NE event weather along NJ and NY coastlines could become difficult as well as Long Island that really at times is part of South New England geographically speaking!  It's worth remembering that another Hurricane Grace was part of the Perfect Storm that did from in a similar region but that was October and this is August. Just a piece of trivia worth mentioning. Could Henri become a perfect mess while Grace 2021 makes landfall down in Mexico while Henri terrorizes the NE and NY with the threat...the tease of an actual landfall? Stay tuned.

Please keep reading the blog written around 8 AM Wednesday!

Mixing it up this morning.

The red inside the green in the storms is intensity.

Henri is moving West at 16 MPH - 65 MPH strong.

Grace is moving West at 8 MPH - 65 MPH strong.

Both are closing in on Hurricane Strength.

NWS has Tropical Storm conditions in their forecast.

Note their forecast below.

So Henri needs to be monitored carefully.

So much for looping out at sea.

I complained he was being ignored....

Basically 3 days from tonight.

So watch the NHC cone carefully.

NWS out of Providencetown MA 

(Link below)

https://forecast.weather.gov/MapClick.php?lon=-70.18435&lat=42.0534333333#.YRzr62jYq01

I'm discussing Henri first as there are possible implications for it to directly impact our weather on the East Coast in the near term. First with strong surf along the Outer Banks and up the Mid Atlantic where beach goers need to be watched carefully due to Riptides and dangerous beach conditions. This all depends of course on how far West Henri gets as well as how strong it becomes. From Long Island North to New England there is a concern that Henri could tease a landfall and definitely bring Tropical Storm conditions to some edgy beaches that reach out into the Atlantic. The GFS is bullish on Henri doing Rhode Island actually and then hooking up through Cape Cod, whereas the Euro sees Henri staying a respectable distance offshore but kicking up the surf. Ensemble models spray the area with tracks on and near the coastline. 

NHC Wind field probabs already touching the coast.

The Cone at 5 AM stays politely offshore.

That may change some as per their discussion.

This is how the NHC does things.

Cautiously they inche a cone this way or that.

It's all a matter of degrees.

The devil is in the degrees in this case.

So pay close attention.

www.windy.com

GFS Model shown above.

A collection of models below from Twitter.

GFS below.........

The GFS actually takes it over Rhode Island.

Something to think on.

https://zoom.earth/

As for Grace she is a beautiful strong Tropical Storm cruising West towards multiple landfalls. Cayman Islands next in her zone of influence, then the Yucatan and then Mexico. She is also forecast to become a hurricane and currently the NHC has her at 85 MPH down the road also. Yet, many models make her significantly stronger. What is impressive about how she has fought off some dry air in the area and keeps consolidating both in side and strength.

Impressive in ways 

Some feel she could be a Major.

Let's wait and see her be a Cane first!

Further East we have a huge wave complex that moved off of Africa with another strong wave coming off the African coast now. Note how SAL also came off big and strong recently with a huge surge of Saharan Dust. Sort of a battle between the two, but the first huge surge sets a more welcoming environment for the new wave. That area should begin to fire soon with real trouble. Purple splotches usually appear before Yellow circles from the NHC and the purple splotches have been consistent and growing.

Watch that wave... time will tell.

Day by day we get closer to CV Season.

I'll update later today or tonight. Not much to say about Grace as it's pretty clear cut in the short term. The long term question is how strong she becomes before Mexico around the Yuctan where water is much warmer and she seems to be aligning up vertically so she will be able to take advantage of that warmer fue for her engine.  

Henri is a close call easily and possibly will indeed bring Tropical Storm conditions to the NE coastline so that's the bigger concern this week. 

And every day we get closer to prime time which means stronger storms, big hurricanes and a long CV season with the MDR in the Atlantic finally fighting off the SAL and allowing hurricanes to zoom West under a strong High.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on Twitter and Instagram.

Theme music for Henri below.......

The NHC in their 5 AM discussion played it conservative yet added this last line into their discussion which was foreshadowing the forecasting problem they are in fact having with Henri and I'm talking within the 5 day time period. "Due to the increased uncertainty in the track forecast, interests along the New England coast should monitor the progress of Henri" Note they also have him as a 85 MPH Hurricane in the not so distant future in 96 hours when he would be up there where he feels he belongs.