WeFeelYa Ophelia

For 2 days now, Ophelia has raked the North Carolina coastline with Category 1 winds, 12-15" of rain, and severe beach erosion. Damage reports show that Brunswick County has taken the worst damage. Top Sail beach and Atlantic beach have both had their dunes destroyed and the beach front cottages are now in the ocean. For a minimal hurricane, Ophelia has made sure we felt her. What she lacked in strength, she made up for in persistence. Tonight Ophelia is off the Frying Pan Shoals moving at a mere 3mph to the ENE. Weekend forecast show that Cape Cod may be the next area in line for this storms wrath. Tropical storm watches were issued for the Cape today.

In 2005, it seems that once one storm passes by, we need to look into the Atlantic to see what's next on the horizon. No rest for the weary is how we started this blog and that theme continues. So here is my outlook for the next 7-10 days.

95L.Invest will most likely become a Tropical Depression on Friday. 95L is a large system with current models forecasting it to become a major hurricane in the next 120 hours. However, one system that the models are not yet being run on is an area just around Puerto Rico. Current satellite imagery is showing this system to be a bit more organized than 95L at this point. I expect this system to also become a depression in the next 48 hours and could head to the southern tip of Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico. No need to mention how vulnerable the Gulf Coast is at this point in time, lets just hope nothing more heads their way. Just off the coast of Africa are 2 more waves that will also need to be watched. The wave just about to come off the coast of Africa is particulary impressive. 2005 has yet to see a true Cape Verde storm make it all the way across the Atlantic and into the CONUS. We are hitting that time of year when these kinds of systems seem to make their presence known. We do have more major hurricanes this year to deal with, it is just a matter of where and when.

SCM