In my previous post less than 24 hours ago, Joaquin wasn’t yet declared a hurricane but as of this writing it’s become a major, Category 3 storm with winds of 120 mph and pressure now said to be below 940mb.

The latest recon flight this morning measured pressure at 938mb.

The hurricane is currently lashing the Bahamas and is expected to take a northward track through the next 72-96 hours but exactly how close it gets to the East Coast remains the golden question. Whether it makes landfall or not, impacts will be significant with powerful wind, flooding rainfall, battering waves and beach erosion up and down the coast.

Here’s the current view of a still strengthening and powerful Hurricane Joaquin.

Visible

Infrared

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There’s 3 players surrounding Joaquin that will be crucial to the future track of this hurricane. The continued presence of a system to the east means the system remains stuck in a gradual WSW motion, being pushed towards the Bahamas. This may be less chance of an East Coast landfall as the trough dropping over the Southeastern US may merely kick Joaquin east out to sea rather than pick it up due to a too far south position. A lot of these questions should be answered by midday tomorrow.

The latest model spray below is now showing two distinct scenarios, either a westward turn into the Carolinas or a north, northeast track out to sea and AWAY from the US.

The latest run of the GFS joins the ECMWF with keeping Joaquin offshore.

ECMWF

Currently on the road but will have more tomorrow.

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