Live Blog: Weather Tidbits, August 14
You can get the very latest on Erin's path and the potential impacts here, but first let's dive in to some of the weather tidbits bubbling on this Thursday:
(01:13 p.m. EDT) Will Calmer Winds Today Help Wildfire Fight In Europe?
Weeks of intense heat waves have fueled wildfires across southern Europe, with deadly impacts in Spain, Turkey and Albania. Today, fire crews in Greece, Spain and Portugal are hoping a drop in wind speeds will help them beat back the fires.
Watch how residents of a port city in Greece risked their lives to save their pets and farm animals.
(01:00 p.m. EDT) Earthquake Shakes North Carolina
A low-magnitude earthquake of 2.7 shook Polk County, North Carolina, just north of the South Carolina state line just after 11 a.m. EDT. The quake's epicenter was near Columbus, North Carolina, according to the USGS.
On social media, a resident of Fletcher, North Carolina, which is located about 30 miles northwest of Mill Spring, said that 'some rumbling preceded it … then it felt like something hit the house.' Residents of towns in both North and South Carolina took to social media to say that they'd felt the quake. At this point, no damage or injuries have been reported.
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New York Times
35 minutes ago
- New York Times
Another Potential Storm Is Brewing in the Gulf of Mexico
A potential tropical storm in the Gulf of Mexico could form and make landfall in Texas or Mexico before Erin even threatens land. While one hurricane hunter flight on Thursday afternoon was en route to the middle of the Atlantic to investigate Erin, another zoomed through a cluster of thunderstorms in the western Gulf of Mexico. While the storm isn't yet strong or even organized into a tropical storm structure, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center believe there is at least a medium chance it could form into a named storm. If it did, it would be called Fernand, the sixth named storm of this year's Atlantic hurricane season. The most likely scenario, forecasters said, is that the storm becomes a tropical depression, which means it begins to create a structure similar to a tropical storm but its winds don't reach the 39 miles per hour that would qualify it as a tropical storm. Regardless of whether this cluster of rainstorms turns into a depression or even into Fernand, it is likely to bring heavy rainfall to portions of Texas. In early July, Barry formed into a tropical storm and quickly accelerated into the eastern coast of Mexico, making landfall the same day it formed. The same thing could happen on Friday as this cluster of storms moves toward Texas or Mexico. Although Barry wasn't strong and departed quickly, the influx of tropical moisture from the storm helped intensify the heavy rainfall that lead to devastating floods in Central Texas on July 4 that left more than 130 people dead. This storm isn't expected to bring that kind of rain, but it could cause some flooding in southeast Texas on Friday. 'Any further intensification of this system will increase the rainfall threat across Deep South Texas,' forecasters with the Weather Prediction Center said. The 'greatest vulnerability' for heavy rainfall, they said, is likely to be in the urban areas around Brownsville and McAllen.
Yahoo
4 hours ago
- Yahoo
Tropical Storm Watches Issued For Northern Leeward Islands
Erin continues to move into warmer waters and is expected to become a major hurricane over the weekend. The track continues to pull the storm slightly closer to the Caribbean, so some impacts are possible, some of which could be significant. The East Coast, The Bahamas and Bermuda will need to continue to monitor Erin over the coming days.
New York Times
4 hours ago
- New York Times
What Hurricane Models Can (and Can't) Tell Us About Tropical Storm Erin
As Tropical Storm Erin moves west toward the Caribbean islands and the official forecast from the National Hurricane Center shows the storm likely beginning to curve — potentially even away from the United States — the center's forecasters have exercised caution, consistently warning that there is a 'greater than normal uncertainty' about where the storm will go after the weekend. But why?The uncertainty has to do with quite a few factors, but a main one is the output of the computer weather models that help meteorologists make their forecasts. Specifically, it's a type of map called a spaghetti plot showing where a computer simulation predicts the center of the storm will be five, seven or even 14 days in the future. These mapped model outputs get their name from their resemblance to long strands of pasta. The closer the lines are together, the more confidence forecasters have in what the storm might do, because it means many of the models agree with one another. For the next few days, there is a pretty reliable consensus that the storm will track northwest. But how much and when it might turn north or even northeast are still big questions. 'The confidence in the predicted location is less at, say, five days, than at two days, said Richard Pasch, an expert at the Hurricane Center. 'In the case of Erin, the model spread increases beyond five days, but not unusually so.' 'It should be noted,' he added, 'that the typically greater uncertainty in the forecasts at six and seven days is the main reason why the National Hurricane Center does not currently issue official forecasts at these longer time ranges.'In 2017, Hurricane Irma, which formed in a similar position to Erin's, was forecast to make a similar curve, but instead it kept moving west, hitting the Caribbean islands and eventually disrupting the west coast of Florida. And Erin is currently in a similar position in the Atlantic Ocean to where Hurricane Lee was in 2023, which did make a turn, allowing it to pass over cooler waters and weaken before hitting Canada. Then there was Hurricane Gloria in 1985, another storm with a similar path to Erin's, which knocked out power to millions of customers and disrupted the lives of millions of people from North Carolina to New England. Previous storm paths The New York Times 'I thought a Gloria track might be possible, but it is looking pretty unlikely that we will see a U.S. landfall from Erin,' Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University, said on Thursday of the hardest parts of any hurricane forecast is trying to predict when a storm will turn and how much of a turn it might like Mr. Klotzbach look for a pattern to help build their confidence around where a storm is most likely to go. The computer models typically run four times a day. After each, forecasters look to see if there have been changes from the last one. Consistency between outputs is one thing forecasters watch for. But if there is a significant change, they usually wait for another model run to make substantial adjustments to the guidance they turn around and share with the aren't just worried about where the storm will go — they are also concerned about how intense the storm might become. While forecasters can use one model to monitor intensity, they usually prefer to look at all of them. To do this, they often plot different forecast intensities on a chart that progresses over time. This line plot gives forecasters an idea of what could happen. Similar to the map plots, the tighter the lines are together between models, the more confident the forecasters are about the intensity. Sometimes they might say the official forecast is below the model guidance, or, as happened Thursday morning, they may say the official forecast was below some of the guidance. This suggests that some models indicate Erin could strengthen more than expected over the next five days. As of Thursday afternoon, the Hurricane Center is saying Erin could grow at least as strong as Category 3 by next week.
