Models De-Hype Carolina Hurricane
If you're a fan of strong hurricanes hitting land, then you'll be disappointed by the trend in the NMM model, which has decreased the strength of the storm during the past day. Below is the point of lowest pressure for the NMM 18Z yesterday vs. this morning's 12Z run:
Here's the sad animation (notice also the southward trend until this morning*). Here are the numbers:
NMM: 12Z TODAY: 29.60" (Weak Tropical Storm)
NMM: 06Z TODAY: 29.30" (Strong Tropical Storm)
NMM: 00Z YEST: 29.00" (Cat 1)
NMM: 18Z YEST: 28.70" (Cat 2)
NMM: 12Z YEST: 28.90" (Cat 1)
NMM: 06Z YEST: 28.60" (Cat 2)
NMM: 12Z TUESDAY: 28.64" (Cat 2)
The WaveWatch model has also signficantly decreased the power of the storm, showing an amorphous blob of 9-12 foot waves offshore, while yesterday it was pounding 36-footers into South Carolina. You may recall that the GFS has been pretty consistent this week in predicting a storm around 29.70", so the NMM may just be catching up to reality. In fact, given these comments from JB [BIO] (PRO): "last night's ECMWF was spectacular for how much it backed down," I'm getting worried that the trend on this storm is not good for storm fans. Of course, we're still talking 3-4 days out so things can still change.
*Of course, the NMM's southward movement can be taken with a grain of salt considering the Model Spread [JessePedia], which has been trending northward / more out to sea:
