Updated 11 PM - Cat 3 All About Erin .... Historic in Size & Forecast to Get Bigger. 80 Percentile in Size Already. Hatteras Island Evacuated. All Eyes on Erin.

 

11 PM 

Steering currents are often complicated. U can see in the upper left corner front very active tonight, coming into the pic. Give it time to play out. Canes have been catching their breath & spinning in that location in the Bahamas waiting for their ticket to ride...forever. This part of the Bahamas is infamous for a large, swirling hurricane waiting for it's path out of the Bahamas to move on to it's next step and often it has to wait a while for the front that is going to grab it and get it away from Florida and the Bahamas.

Long tracking hurricanes are not for the faint of heart; they take patience and appreciation for the process that is going on inside a system that has the energy of a small nuclear bomb. Except rather than going off all at once it grinds across the landscape or an island as Dorian did not so far from here where Erin is now and like a long, run on sentence every word matters and every bit of shear matters. Upwelling matters. Pressure being pushed down on it and High Pressure somewhere else holding it in this pattern where it eeks out a few miles is not for the faint of heart.

Models run fast, every few hours another model presents you with a brand new idea for where a wave that has not formed yet into a tropical depression will make landfall. BING BANG BOOM!

Tracking is about watching satellite imagery, getting info from Recon and understanding the synoptics it's not a Meme and it's not a random model run that everyone forgets until the next model run comes out hitting another city for a tropical wave that is not even a tropical depression.

Just stop. Breathe. Wait for the front to do it's thing and know that the time is being used along beaches near it's track to prepare for pounding surf and beach erosion.  I don't just mean in NC but also in parts of Virginia as well as possibly up the coast depending on which exact track within the Cone and the forecast Erin ends up taking. From Cape Hatteras to Cape Cod and beyond...........

See the front top left.

Bright red ...Big powerful front.

Moving into place.

Erin sits spinning waiting.

Forecast NW at 8 MPH

It's forecast to move....NW at 8 MPH

The door to the North is opening.

Stage is being set.

https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/text/refresh/MIATCDAT5+shtml/190234.shtml Good Discussion from the NHC it reads like a Novel or a manual explaining the difficulties in forecasting every exact moment and movement of a hurricane like Erin. Models diverge on timing and some pull right, others pull left. She's weakened and slowed down. As I say she is waiting to start moving again. Her size is growing as she sits and spins and upwelling may also I'll add be a bit of an issue and there are some here reading this who knows how I hate when forecasters say "upwelling" but it's been in this general neighborhood for quite a while. Shear took it's bite on the NE side nibbling away at her and yet she spins beautifully. Give her time. And, the forecast shear was not a surprise as it was mentioned many times in previous advisories.

Keep reading if you did not.

And Recon is still out there....

* * * * *

I'm just gonna write a bit. My laptop is being weird, not in the mood to play with it's settings and truly what I want to do is write so I will fill in pictures later.

Rarely do we get to witness a historic hurricane from it's inception as a tightly wound, tropical wave spinning.... rolling off of Africa smashing into Cabo Verde killing at least 8 people and several still missing as Erin rolled on becoming Invest 97L and working her way up to Cat 4 Hurricane.

I mean the many faces of Erin from small, compact, tropical wave seemingly trapped inside a wall of Saharan Dust and yet she persevered as the forecast promised and she kept on rolling. 

You don't see that often these days.  Talking Classic Old School Hurricane Potential and she was indeed potential realized. I remember asking on X "is this the one?" and the answer was yes she is one amazing Major Cat 4 Hurricaane on Monday Morning, August 18th!

Erin, like Donna, drew blood before she even got a name. As soon as she had a name she was "Deadly Erin" and there's always been a sense of purpose to her mission as she moved across the Atlantic towards the Caribbean.  And, yet she was kind to the Islands as she swerved just above them to their North, yet still lashing them with heavy rain bands. 

She began rapid intensifying and doing eye wall replacement cycles and she hasn't stopped doing them. As I said earlier in a playful blog, they are not for the faint of heart hurricanes. They are acrobatic gyrations inside the structure of the eye, around the eye and there's a process of expanding, renewal, then the eye wall drops and then grows in size and there's a new eye wall and while this goes on she seems to wobble to the left at times. It's hard to turn an 18 wheeler and it's even harder to turn a hurricane that's growing in size, strength and doing eye wall replacement cycles. And everyone from Florida to the Carolinas watches closely as she wobbles left like a football that may not make it through the uprights and yet it does.

Then she stairsteps here way up....  away from Puerto Rico to the land near the Turks and Caicos again not over them but near enough for them to feel her strength, her energy and her historic presence. She wobbles West a bit, then pulls up and evened out it's headed NW while she seems to move WNW. Every wobble West people hold their breath. Everyone is watching!

Maybe that is her game, for us to feel the fury and strength of a dangerous hurricane yet to spare us a direct hit. Maybe she's a lesson and a warning for the hurricanes to come this year? She's definitely moving the air around this planet from the Equator to the Poles and that is the job of a Hurricane and she's doing it damn well! Keep avoiding land Erin, even the heat from your warm, tropical breath on our beaches is way strong enough for us!

Erin is currently 130 MPH ....tropical Storm Force winds go out 230 miles as Erin climbs up into the Atlantic latitude by latitude she becomes even bigger, wider and her winds and waves go out further. How big will she really get? How wide will her wind field be? How far West will she get on her way "out to sea"  ???

Currently the Outer Banks are a concern, especially Hatteras Island that has been evacuated for expected dangerous high waves, surf and beach erosion that occurs there as sand blows across Highway 12 and the water rises higher and higher and most likely flooding out the highway that connects Hatteras Island with the rest of the Outer Banks and the bridge that connects that with the Mainland.  At some point we will watch for the tip of Long Island and Erin's impact on New Jersey beaches up the road but today her dangerous impacts on North Carolina is the compelling concern.

We went to Hatteras less than 2 weeks ago. There was a possible Invest nearby I wanted to see the waves kicking up and yes foam was flying and the wind was tugging at you as you stood staring out into the dark blue Atlantic. We drove Highway 12 up past Rodanthe, Avon to all the places I always hear about but have never been to despite being at Kill Devil Hills several times. It's a long hour drive down to Hatteras on a ribbon of road where the sand blows across it taking flight during strong gusts and it's wild as it's one part driving down to the Florida Keys and one part like driving on I-10 out in the desert in California and all the time you are driving on a road that really is out in the Atlantic Ocean.

Glad we went down to Hatteras.  I knew that it would be in play this Hurricane Season as there's been a Coastal Carolina Cruiser sort of feel to 2025. We had Chantal on July 4th Weekend, we had an Invest offshore when I was there so yeah that happened and now here we are watching Erin make her way on her Drive By Tropical Tour as she hopefully, continues to drive by all the beautiful ports of call in the tropics that an African Hurricane likes to see.

See it from offshore Erin... keep up your record of sliding by and moving on.

I'll update later today.

The cone is an extrapolation of the last cone. The track is good, give or take a few wobbles West but she is lifting and she will at some point move on up into the North Atlantic.

But.........there's way more to come later in the season.

More on that later.

Besos BobbiStorm

@bobbistorm on X