A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH IS IN EFFECT UNTIL 10:00 PM EST FOR THE 1-81 CORRIDOR WESTWARD.

Discussion: A slow moving front will put an end to our unseasonable heat tonight, and as it does so, severe thunderstorms will be possible across the northern and western suburbs. The biggest risk for these storms is the heavy rainfall, which could exceed 1-3 inches/hour in heavier cells.

We need all the rain we can get, and its quite possible that the immediate metro area sees a solid half inch of rainfall tonight as the storms move weaken as they push into the area. I am confident that most locales will see some rain with this system, although the true soaking rain will stay north and west of the immediate DC area.

Projected times of the first drops:
Winchester: 5:30
Hagerstown: 6:00
Frederick: 6:30 (although a pop-up storm did drop some rain earlier today...)
Werenton: 7:30
Fairfax: 9:00
Rockville: 9:30
Washington D.C.: 10:00
Baltimore: 10:30
Anapolis: 11:00
Fredericksburg south: rain not likely.

Heavy rainfall associated with slow moving thunderstorms will be possible over the next several hours as a wave of low pressure moves up a nearly stationary front and spreads moisture over the extremely humid air mass in place (Gabriel left behind very high dew points when it departed).

Although a widespread severe weather event is not anticipated, a couple of damaging wind reports are possible. The heavy rainfall, in some of the heavier cells though will be the main threat. Hopefully we can get some rain from this system...

It took a little longer than expected, but the area of disturbed weather off the North Carolina Coast finally became tropical in nature this afternoon (at first, the NHS listed it as a subtropical storm....don't ask me what made it "tropical" by 5pm but "sub-tropical" at 2pm).

At this point, Gabriel is a weak tropical storm with winds sustained at 40mph (although I do think that may be underdone a bit). While the track of Gabby (below) indicates that nobody west of the Eastern Shore will be impacted by the storm, in recent hours, the tropical storm has wobbled a bit west which may in turn take the track a bit further west.


This westward trend must be monitored, and I do still think that there is an outside chance that Gabby reached hurricane status before making landfall in Eastern Carolina. Unless something drastic happens however, it doesn't look like Gabby will be one for the memories.

At 3:30pm Wednesday, new recon reports showed that the area of circulation southwest of Bermuda is very close to tropical depression status. Chances are high that by Thursday we will have tropical storm Gabriel, and computer models are indicating that there is a chance that Gabriel will strenghten and move west towards the North Carolina Coast, potentially impacting the DC area by the end of this weekend with heavy rain and strong winds.



Stay tuned...

Sunday Night Update: Hurricane Felix strengthened rapidly today, reaching category 5 status this evening. Just to get a sense of the strength of this storm, when NOAA recon planes flew into the storm earlier today, they found lightning in all quadrents (usually something we only see in hurricanes that are truly exploding in intensity) and graupel (small frozen water droplets/hail that can were obviously large enough to damage the plane), and ultimately had to abort the mission. The plane also recorded a 1mb drop in pressure per mile when flying into the storm. That will make your ears pop like CRAZY!!! Felix should level out in terms of winds Monday, and continue fluxuating in intensity between strong CAT 4 or CAT 5 until its landfall.

There is little change in the forcasted path--- Felix should continue west-northwestward towards Northern Honduras and Belize. There is still a slight chance that Felix will move far enough north to make a US landfall in Texas after its initial landfall somewhere in Belize or the Yucatan.




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On the home front, a strong ridge of high pressure has moved into the area, and there is no indication that anything other than sunny skies and warm temperatures will persist well into the future. Temperatures will start to get up there to around 90 by Labor Day, and stay in the upper 80s through the week with no rain in the forecast.




On to the tropics, where things are starting to heat up again:

Felix: Hurricane Felix (winds sustained at 70mph on Saturday) will continue to move west-northwestward towards the southern Carribean. Most of the models keep the storm well south of the Gulf Coast and take the storm into the Yucatan Penninsula, however some models have begun to shift northward. Trends will need to monitored.

98L: This system has strengthened significantly today, and should reach tropical depression status by tonight or tomorrow. It is far to early to tell, but 98L has a chance to be threat to the east coast by next week.