Earl Weakens, Fiona Dies, Gaston Making Comeback

Hurricane Earl weakened to a tropical storm late this evening.  Its center is passing about 75 miles southeast of Nantucket at this hour.  Top winds are 70 mph.  The system is moving northeast at 25 mph.   It will make landfall in Nova Scotia in about 10 hours.

At this hour, winds are averaging 20-30 mph on the Cape with gusts to around 45 mph.  The barometer had fallen to 29.18 inches at Nantucket. It feels quite tropical up there thanks to the air that Earl is carrying along with it. A temperature over dewpoint of 72F/70F at Nantucket last hour. Things will imprive quickly in the Boston/Cape area today with sunny skies expected and highs in the 70s.

Lots of media carping today about whether Earl was over-hyped.  The only people that I saw hyping this one was…the media.  The National Hurricane Center couldn’t have done a much better job days in advance with their forecast and the warnings were appropriate, I think.

Fiona weakened to a remnant low south of Bermuda and will pass near the island this morning.

Gaston is poised to make a comeback, possibly becoming a tropical depression again today about midway between the islands of the Caribbean and the Cape Verdes.  Some model output puts Gaston in the eastern Caribbean as a hurricane early next week and it could be knocking on the door on this side of the world by next weekend.

Another disturbance over the eastern Atlantic will likely become Hermine in the next few days.

Category: Uncategorized