Jared W. Smith: On The Internet(s)

Charleston Weather is the collective name for a series of outlets for my passion for meteorology.

One of those outlets is this very blog. Here I ponder weather patterns for Charleston, with emphasis on tropical and other types of severe weather.

When severe weather threatens, I also post severe weather video briefings on Ustream.tv, complete with radar analysis using GRLevel3, which I lovingly nickname “SuperDeeDooperDoppler”. Broadcasts on Ustream are designed to be interactive and feature an IRC chat room. I also occasionally accept callins and cohosts, as well.

@chswx is a Twitter account I operate to push quick updates about severe weather conditions, weather blogs from jaredwsmith.com, and notifications of the live Ustream broadcasts. The account will eventually be configured to post current conditions updates and other useful information.

Please note that Charleston Weather is still largely a hobby, and should never replace official information from the National Weather Service and local emergency management officials.

Tropical Storm Fay is currently in the midst of its third landfall roughly in the St. Augustine area. It’s packing 60 MPH winds and is tiptoing its way toward the northwest at 2 MPH. Tropical Storm Warnings extend from roughly just south of the Space Coast to the Savannah River. Judging by the above image from Jacksonville’s long-range radar, Fay’s broad circulation has begun to cross the coast once more.

This is the third landfall for Florida. Parts of the state have started measuring their rainfall totals in feet, and flooding is definitely occurring. Fay’s slow movement ensures that it will be sticking around for quite a while; it’s not expected to be out of the state before Saturday.

Impact on Charleston

As you’ve likely noticed, there have been periodically heavy rain showers with some decent east winds at about 15-20 MPH, with gusts at the College of Charleston weather station topping out at 26 MPH yesterday. Surf has been a bit rough, and beach erosion has been occurring. Additionally, because of the prolonged east wind, tides are running a little higher than normal (1-2 feet) and thus downtown flooding is more likely to occur with a downpour. (High tide is expected at 11:40 AM.) Today’s Storm Prediction Center outlook keeps the tornado threat well south of here, so that should not be a problem as we go forward.

Best bets? Keep the umbrella handy and watch out for squalls causing localized downtown flooding during the day. It doesn’t look like Fay is going to do much more than soak us periodically. There’s a chance of higher gusts in squalls, but not a great one at this point.

You can keep an eye on the weather from the College’s station, in the heart of the peninsula.

The National Weather Service in Charleston initiated local statements on Fay at about 7:00 tonight. Weather Underground is a good place to read these statements, as they do some processing to make them mixed case and thus a bit easier to read. The latest statement from NWS Charleston as of this writing came around 9:00 tonight.

The entire statement is available at Weather Underground. Notably, NWS Charleston expects 2 to 3 inches of rain over the area from Fay, so it’s not out of the realm of possibility to see flash flood watches posted during the day on Wednesday. Also, Charleston will be in a risk area for isolated tornadoes from Fay’s rain bands starting Wednesday night roughly through Friday. This is to be expected as we’ll be sitting in the northeastern quadrant of the storm — granted, not very close to the center — for the duration of the event. Also, watch for those rip currents if you’re headed to the beach — they’ll be mighty strong.

It’s worth noting that as of this writing, no advisories have been posted for the area yet. I suspect this will change as we go through Wednesday.

The 11:00 Advisory

Fay’s appearance on radar has degraded significantly. It’s left some of the swampier areas and is over more solid landmass now, and as a result, its winds have dipped to 50 MPH with probably a little more weakening to go. It stalled out a bit before resuming a north-northeast motion at about 3 or 4 MPH. It’ll likely get off the coast before morning and begin strengthening again; conditions look reasonably favorable for Fay to reach minimal hurricane status. The forecast track, watches, and warnings are largely unchanged.

I’ll have more during the day tomorrow as conditions warrant and as time permits.

Every year or so, we get a reminder of just how unpredictable tropical systems can be. Tropical Storm Fay is proving to be that storm. It’s done very little to plan at this point; it surged more westward than expected; came onshore weaker than expected, and now it’s done what is usually unthinkable — it’s strengthened over land.

As of 5:00, Fay’s packing 65 MPH winds and heading north-northeast at 8 MPH. Tropical storm watches extend as far north as the Savannah River now, though it’s worth noting that none of South Carolina has been included as of yet. There’s still a lot of variables involved; model guidance has a bit more consensus on a turn to the west before the South Carolina coast. The official NHC forecast has Fay reintensifying to at least a Category 1 hurricane before making landfall; some models are more aggressive than others on this reintensification, but given the structure of the storm and what it’s done so far on land, I venture to guess that it will be on the upper end of Category 1 before all’s said and done.

Now, it’s not unprecedented for storms to hold their own a bit better over parts of Central Florida than other areas because of the Everglades and associated swampland, but for a storm to actually gain strength and organization — if you look at the radar image above, it’s gaining quite a tight, if not a tad elongated, circulation with a tiny eye feature — that’s something I think nobody expected. It threw the Hurricane Center off, that’s for sure, as they’ve had to realign a lot of their forecasts based on this totally unexpected turn.

One thing that’s been interesting to note is that the models all have it getting slowed down tremendously before shifting back west; what’s key for the Charleston area is how far north it wanders. Any little jump north or south could prove to have a world of difference on our weather. A jump 50 miles north could have significant impacts here. Given its current projection, we may see some outlying bands and cloudiness, but nothing incredibly major. If there’s one thing Fay’s reminded us of, though, is that these things can and do change without notice. The experts have been confounded by this one; with that in mind, I implore you to continue to keep a close eye on things and continue some preparations in case something changes, which Fay has been more than happy to do.

Serious Business proper was preempted somewhat tonight by a briefing on Charleston Weather for Tropical Storm Fay. I’m planning on doing a few more videos as the storm gets closer; the interactive sessions on Ustream could be potentially useful as we continue to learn more about what Fay is going to do. Blog posts about Fay will continue and be tagged appropriately.

I recorded tonight’s briefing, and it’s now available online (though it may be outdated by tomorrow morning). Take a look:

I encourage you to check out the Hurricane room on FriendFeed, the hyper-aggregator service. The room, created by Rob Williams and suggested to me in comments the other day, brings in a variety of sources of information about hurricane threats in one location with full interactivity and commenting. (Rooms are why FriendFeed kicks boo-tay.) I highly recommend it for getting all the updates and news in one place.