On the Radar with Jess
With the 11 am advisory, the NHC upgraded PTC 9 to Tropical Depression (TD) 9. Late on Friday and continuing through the Saturday morning model runs, the trend was to have what will be Imelda slowdown just off the southeast coast before taking a right turn to the east thanks to Humberto. This is reflected in the 11 am cone below:
Our Weatherstem station located in the Bahamas at Blue Lagoon Island will have conditions deteriorate throughout the day and into tomorrow. Follow the conditions here and you can see the increasing clouds and showers already in the timelapse from early Saturday morning to Saturday afternoon:
There is still uncertainty in the track past the Bahamas, with a split in the models as shown below. A few still make landfall while several turn out to sea:
Regardless of an actual landfall, the southeast US will still see impacts including strong winds, heavy rain, high surf and coastal flooding. Let's discuss the wind impacts first. With a track remaining offshore, the strongest winds should also remain offshore. Still, winds gusts over 40 mph are likely along the Florida east coast, Georgia and South Carolina coasts.
Heavy rain is still expected as tropical moisture is pumped into the southeast. 3-5" across a broad region with locally higher amounts right along the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina:
A prolonged period of elevated surf, coastal flooding, and rip current risk will impact the Southeast coast of the US through much of the next week with the system slowing down. Look at this animation of wave heights through Sunday through next Saturday morning:
Stay tuned for more updates as this is still a very trick forecast and will need to be monitored throughout the weekend.
