Tropical Storm — or possible Hurricane conditions — will arrive along the Mid-Atlantic coast late Monday into Tuesday. Some models still disagree on how much land interaction and wind shear will occur as Hurricane Isaias moves very near Florida’s East Coast on Sunday. Due to some of the models inching closer to the Florida Coast, Hurricane watches and warnings have been issued. The system is being steered by a large high pressure system in the Atlantic. As the system moves northwest, then north, Isaias is expected to slow down before interaction with a trough dipping across the Eastern United States, which will help steer Isaias along the southeast and Mid-Atlantic coastline.
The latest spaghetti plots are not as tightly clustered as before, showing Isaias possibly making landfall in Florida. If this occurs, the storm will weaken to Tropical Storm before making it to the Southeastern North Carolina cost. If the system misses Florida and not much sheer occurs even with the trough and southwesterly winds pushing the system to the northeast, then it’s possible that the storm could strengthen over the very warm gulf stream waters. This would put Hampton Roads and Northeast North Carolina in the WORST part of the storm with high winds and moderate to major tidal flooding. This would NOT be a ‘Dorian’ type scenario and Hampton Roads gets spared with minimal flooding. Also, as the system approaches, there will be a ‘full moon’ and tides will already be astronomically higher than normal. The only ‘saving grace’ is that Isaias would move quickly, but we would still experience hurricane and/or tropical storm conditions for at least 12 hours from late Monday into Tuesday.
