Wetter and cooler for the Northeast tonight and tomorrow
1. Hurricane Irma is the monster on the weather map, with top winds at 175 miles per hour. That's a category 5, the top category for ranking hurricane winds. It was centered at 16.7 north and 57.7 west at 7 a.m. ET. That's 1929 miles south-southeast of New York City, so it is farther away than Denver, Colorado. Some people have questioned why I would mention the distance from New York City if the storm looks like it is aimed somewhere else, but New York City is simply a familiar reference point. There are many computer models that are run in an effort to help us predict where the storm is going. This map shows the spray of model solutions as of last night:
The GFS enseble mean (the average of all the runs of the GFS last night) weighs in with this map for next Sunday morning:
If it goes as shown (keep in mind the projected path has changed in some way every day since the storm developed), it would be a big threat to South Florida, and could then impact the west coast of Florida and cause flooding rain in parts of the Southeast.
2. Back home in the Northeast and Great Lakes regions, a new shot of October-like air is advancing southeastward (the average high in Chicago on Oct. 1 is 68 F; the average low is 48 F) This map shows the frontal location as of early this morning:
This regional map shows the cloudiness and rain early this morning:
3. There are lots of cloudiness in the cool air mass from the Great Lakes into Canada. With that air mass passing over the Great Lakes, more moisture will be added and so clouds and lake-effect showers should be expected from the Lakes downwind into the Appalachians the next few days. Farther east, the cold front will slow or stall, and a band of rain is likely from Virginia and eastern West Virginia northeastward into New England tonight and tomorrow.
4. The following map shows where lightning occurred yesterday and last night. Some thunderstorms may be embedded in the Northeast rain event, but they should be much less common than they were farther west.
