ophelia has probably done it's worst to the mainland. the counties along long bay and onslow bay from northeast sc up across southeast nc have taken long hours of strong gusty winds and intense rainfall.. parts of brunswick county north carolina have doppler estimates ranging near 15". the waccamaw river is going to be up for a while, needless to say. right now the center is approaching what will be considered a landfall.. if only partial... at cape lookout. the large eye should trace the barrier islands to near hatteras, with the core of strong winds running from carteret county to dare county. ophelia has been fairly stable today at around 980mb, with the winds roughly matching the minimum pressure. based on the outflow and convective pattern i wouldn't expect it to intensify any more. terminal track from here should be close enough to nantucket/cape cod to merit issuance of t.s. warnings for a late friday passage.. and the storm will likely move even closer to nova scotia on saturday as it becomes extratropical. there is a chance it will baroclinically interact with the shortwave to the west and move more to the north, affecting eastern new england more severely. the nhc doesn't think this is likely and neither do i... as the storm has tended east consistently and the shortwave doesn't appear to be digging or amplifying much. if this occurs the track will be slower in the short term and ophelia will pass the areas to the north perhaps 12hr later than otherwise.
rest of the basin:
95L has an ever growing envelope of convection. the low pressure at the surface is elongated east-west, but slowly consolidating. if it takes longer then the ultimate track will be further west, and quite possibly over the caribbean islands. most of the models are favoring a quicker development and more northward track, and based on the appearance of the system i'd agree with them. this will probably be a classified system by the weekend. most of the globals and ensemble runs are showing a persistent weakness in the subtropical ridge near 65-70w, so this system will likely end up closer to bermuda than the u.s.
what has me far more concerned is the feature north of puerto rico. the consensus of globals track this feature westward through the straits of florida around early next week.. some showing a closed surface low at that point. the hpc official even tracks it as such. ensemble forecasts show the zonal steering ridge centered over the gulf states weakening around the time this feature would be nearing the western gulf... if it hasn't developed and done something strange in the meanwhile, it will be there late next week. very strong upper ridging is shown in the gulf at this time... looks like a very favorable scenario for development if it pans out. i've been mumbling about texas maybe seeing something later this month for about a week now... the candidate has shown up. western gulf is still very warm... it's something to keep an eye out for.
globals are showing other activity as the month progresses. the mjo pulse has sort of split, going out of phase again. we'll probably see a more strung out, less concentrated pulse.. but if you look at the tropical eastpac right now you get the picture that it's vigorous enough. also been watching the sst anomalies in the tropical pacific. there's a more clear cold signal than we've had all year... la nina may be coming on this winter, after a 3 1/2 year hiatus.
that'll do her.
HF 0129z15september