>RAIN, WIND AND WAVES that have pounded the US East Coast Barrier Islands has been considered by the local Virginia Beach newspaper as “One of the Worst”

Nature has a stunning way of bringing certain elements together by generating weather systems and seasons that pave the way for future weather. For example, if it weren’t for a very quiet, silent hurricane season, water temps wouldn’t be as warm for this time of year either in the Gulf and Caribbean or in the western Atlantic as this time last year with all the tropical traffic, upwelling from passing systems removed a large portion of the maximum heat potential. Those waters over the Caribbean, though still would have been warm, simply don’t know the time of year but the “lack” of systems has maintained an almost prime ocean profile that would be found in mid-season. What is different and what made Ida weaken considerably and fast was the atmospheric profile is not what it was and westerlies and the hostility of the mid and upper levels is much greater.

PLAYERS ON THE FIELD

Ida indeed grew into a strong category 2 hurricane in the southern Gulf, which isn’t all that normal for this late in the season but not unheard of. Plenty of heat, plenty of power and a good healthy circulation is one of the key sources to what we’re seeing along the East Coast. Also, this time of year allows the jet stream and westerlies to push further south into the sub-tropics regions and as the cold continues to grow and mature, so too does the jet’s progression south as well as it’s intensifying ribbons of energy around 30,000 ft.

Hyrbid or cold cored systems also form further south and with a newly formed system over the western Atlantic, a remnant , once warm core, tranformed into cold core, Ida and a large high pressure cell over the Northeast US, the perfect combination of meteorology was coming together for a storm that could rival the greats of the past.

So, 1) Remnant Ida which hits the US, Eastern Gulf Coast and moves northeast off the Fla, GA coastline and back into 85-degree waters, 2) the hybrid system to the east of Ida and 3) the strong and large high over the Northeast US is the trio that would bring a 1,000 mile fetch of east to northeast gales to the coast from North Carolina to Long Island with the bulls-eye being Virginia.

INTERNAL DYNAMICS OF THESE TWO LOW PRESSURE SYSTEMS

What has fuelled the exceptional rainfall and driven the massive waves has been the differing origins of the two-lows. One a cold core to start with (Hyrbid system) and Ida which was born in the tropics and became a tropical system. It of course became a decent hurricane with a massive amount of energy within, despite it’s transition to cold core, it holds on to it’s vast amounts of tropical-moisture within and when you start cooling a system from “outside it’s perameter then you start to release more moisture as the system cools, it releases the vast quanities that tropical system pull out of the warm ocean, after all, warm, moist ocean is what drives a warm-core system..

The two systems literally coming together as well as the strong, large high to their north, the pressure graient was very tight as well as an unusually large fetch in which a strong gale blowing 1,000 miles directly onshire is going to cause major problems for roads, homes and power.

I am very limited today for writing the finer details of what has actually taken place along the coast, but please check out Accuweather, the weather channel, cnn, usatoday and many other great sources out there for the latest. This has been an amazing storm that will be remembered for a long time.

I hope to write more tomorrow but a long final day of the week tomorrow for me.

Hope you all have a great weekend!

Thanks for reading.

-Mark