Tuesday, August 31, 2010

Earl Maintains Intensity - Moving WNW


Major hurricane Earl continues to move West-Northwest through the Carribean this morning.  At 10am Central Time, the center was located 250 miles East of Grand Turk Island.  Maximum sustained winds are estimated at 135 mph.

Earl is still expected to take on more of a Northwest track later today and tonight, then reach a point between Florida & Bermuda by late Wednesday night or early Thursday morning, still as a "major" hurricane.


The last couple of computer forecast model runs have indicated that the trough of low pressure forecast to develop over the Great Lakes later this week (which would then force Earl to move more Eastward into the Atlantic and away from the U.S. coast) will do so more slowly than earlier forecast.  If this turns out to be the case, then there would be a greater threat to the East Coast, particularly starting around the Carolinas late Thursday or Friday.

With the above in mind, and considering the large overall size of Earl, I would expect to see the National Hurricane Center issue a hurricane watch for parts of the Carolina coast and/or mid-Atlantic region later this afternoon.

We'll continue to evaluate the afternoon computer model trends today and post a more detailed update later this evening.

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