Hurricane Irma Likely to Affect U.S. but Too Early to Tell Where
The late morning track of Irma from the National Hurricane Center has the storm near the north coast of Cuba by Sunday morning as a Category 4 storm with 130 mph sustained winds.
But where will she go next? When you are talking six or seven or more days out, there’s always uncertainty.
The overnight runs of the two most popular weather models show similar, but slightly different paths. The model in blue, the American GFS model has the storm moving north across Florida, even curving back towards Tennessee. But look at the date. Wednesday, September 13th. That is eight days away!
The European ECMWF model (in green) is a little farther east, brushing southeast Florida and headed through the Carolinas and into the northeast U.S. Still eight days out!
If you follow these models over the next week or so, you will see that every day they will she something somewhat different that the previous runs. As a matter of fact, as I write this post, the new GFS is coming in, and follows the European model more closely.
There are even possibilities that the storm could go farther west into the Gulf of Mexico before turning northward.
What I have always said about interpreting the models that far out in time is that you need to take away generalities, rather than specifics of the tracks.
The generalities are that the storm will likely come ashore in the United States and not stay out to sea. That is something we can prepare for. We will keep you posted throughout the week.
Courtesy of Nashville’s WKRN News 2 – by Davis Nolan – Hurricane Irma likely to affect U.S. but too early to tell where
