WEATHER
Temperatures started off in the 50s this morning — our coolest temperatures since mid-June, almost 100 days ago. We’re only going to warm up to the mid 70s this afternoon, about 5°-7° below average.
Low humidity, lots of sun with a few fair-weather clouds, and a nice northeasterly breeze…pretty much perfect!
Tonight will bring the coolest temperatures of this little taste of fall. We’ll drop to the upper 40s and low 50s by early Friday morning. We haven’t been below 50° in the Triangle since mid-May — we’ll get close, but I don’t think we’ll drop quite that far.
Light winds on Friday will turn to the southeast — combine that warmer wind direction with abundant sunshine, and we’ll warm up to the upper 70s and low 80s.
The warming trend will continue over the weekend, but the low humidity means that we’ll still start off each morning in the 50s. The first day of autumn will bring a return of summer-like conditions: highs in the upper 80s to around 90°, and just enough humidity to give us a very slight chance of a pop-up shower or storm.
TROPICAL UPDATE
We’re tracking three named storms in the Atlantic basin, none of which are forecast to impact our weather in central North Carolina.
Hurricane Humberto brought 100+mph wind gusts to Bermuda late yesterday, but that storm is now moving over the cooler waters of the North Atlantic. The early-morning update from the National Hurricane Center still showed it as a Category 3 storm with 125 mph sustained winds, but it will weaken rapidly over the next 24 hours.
Tropical Depression Imelda continues to bring heavy rain and flooding to southeast Texas, especially the Beaumont-Port Arthur area. My first TV job was at the ABC affiliate in Beaumont — that station had to evacuate this morning as flooding invaded the studio.
Imelda is essentially parked over southeast Texas, and will slowly drift northward over the next couple of days, bringing more flooding.
Tropical Storm Jerry is the only storm in the Atlantic that has even an outside chance of affecting our weather. It’s a strong tropical storm this morning, with 70 mph sustained winds.
The National Hurricane Center anticipates Jerry becoming a hurricane later today as it tracks to the west-northwest. The forecast path takes it just north of the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico through the first half of the weekend.
After that, the NHC forecast shows Jerry turning north before it reaches the Bahamas — a path that will also keep it away from the U.S. coastline. By early next week, Bermuda will once again be tracking an approaching hurricane.
Most of the forecast model data agrees with the NHC forecast — in fact, it’s remarkable to see this level of consensus in a long-range tropical outlook.
That said, a few outlier members of the European model’s ensemble take Jerry on a more westerly track toward the Bahamas. That is NOT the most-likely scenario, but we’ll keep a close eye on the storm just in case!
A couple other areas of disturbed weather on either side of Jerry have low chances of intensifying over the next several days.
LINKS
- The Cincinnati Reds and other businesses have installed new “lightning suppression” devices that they say have totally stopped cloud-to-ground strikes at their facilities. They can say what they want — things like this do NOT work.
- A team of researchers will freeze their ship into Arctic Ocean ice for a year. The goal of the mission is to better understand why the top of the world is warming at such an alarming rate.
- A profile of the Swedish teenager who is now one of the most-famous faces of climate activism.
- Communications experts say that youth climate activists are making an unprecedented impact because they are seen by adults as immune to conflicts of interest — and they remind us that our descendants will reap what we sow.
- Kids skipping school to protest climate change isn’t just reasonable — it’s actually logical.
- Economic analysts say we need nothing short of a total transformation in how we think about the carbon impact of every dollar spent.
- Major oil, power and consumer products companies are releasing their most specific plans yet for a U.S.-wide carbon tax.
- During its 20th flyby, NASA’s Juno spacecraft snapped a photo of a dark abyss circling in Jupiter’s atmosphere. This dark spot was a sort of storm that had never been seen before, and likely dives deep into the atmosphere.
- Our galaxy’s supermassive black hole has put on a brilliant light show in 2019. Scientists aren’t sure why it’s been so bright this year.
- The most-massive neutron star ever discovered packs more than twice the mass of our own Sun into a 30km diameter — close to the upper limit before a neutron star collapses into a black hole.
- A newly identified protein may be the key to vanquishing the common cold.
- For killing flu viruses, skip the alcohol hand rub and just wash your hands instead.
