How the wide wind field of Hurricane Lee will cause problems beyond its direct path
AccuWeather spoke with the director of the National Hurricane Center on Sept. 14 to discuss the range of forecasted impacts from Hurricane Lee.
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00:00 It's my pleasure to bring in the director of the National Hurricane Center from Miami,
00:05 Florida, Dr. Michael Brennan, again, the director of the National Hurricane Center.
00:09 And Dr. Brennan, thanks so much for joining us here.
00:12 And this has been such a long road.
00:15 We're seeing these tropical storms so far in advance.
00:19 And I know this might be a question you have to ponder a little bit.
00:22 But so far, what has been some of the biggest forecasting challenges that the Hurricane
00:27 Center has been facing since you guys have been tracking Lee as well?
00:33 Well, I think initially it was the rapid intensification of the storm, which we were able to anticipate
00:39 somewhat, but getting the details right is always difficult.
00:42 And then once you get a powerful category four or five hurricane, anticipating the eyewall
00:47 replacement cycles and the other structural changes that caused the storm to weaken.
00:51 And now we're dealing with a hurricane that's growing in size and is already very large
00:56 and is going to continue to grow in size and going to bring impacts from a very over a
00:59 very wide area from, you know, southeastern New England all the way up into Atlanta, Canada,
01:04 over the next few days.
01:05 And so that's sort of the messaging challenge is not to focus on the fact that the peak
01:08 winds have come down, but the fact that the scale of the storm is so large, we're going
01:12 to have impacts over a very large area.
01:14 And certainly, Dr. Brennan, many of us and many of the public are following that eye
01:19 path.
01:20 But when you talk to the emergency managers and the people on the front lines, what are
01:26 you telling them?
01:27 What is your messaging?
01:28 I got to believe one of the messaging is, is what you already talked about, that the
01:32 center of circulation may not be the most important part of the storm itself any longer.
01:38 Right.
01:39 Yeah.
01:40 You can see the tropical storm force winds here in the orange extend out almost 300 miles
01:43 from the center where I get basically tropical storm conditions on Bermuda and the storms
01:47 more than 250 miles away in terms of the center.
01:49 So as that wind field moves north, we're going to see impacts from wind over a large area.
01:54 That's where you have that tropical storm watch all the way from the coast of Rhode
01:57 Island up to Maine and the potential for higher wind, higher level impacts from wind, you
02:01 know, in down east Maine and Nova Scotia, New Brunswick, where there's hurricane watches
02:04 are in effect, where we could get a little closer to the core of Lee.
02:08 But there's that.
02:09 And then there's the widespread potential for coastal flooding.
02:11 You know, one to three feet above above above normally dry ground with that storm surge
02:17 watch in effect for portions of Cape Cod on the bay side in the Antucket, where we could
02:21 see the two to four feet of inundation just because that large wind field of Lee is going
02:24 to be moving so much water around again, regardless of the exact track of the center, we're going
02:28 to have widespread coastal impacts, beach erosion, large waves, dangerous surf and some
02:33 and some inundation.
02:34 And, Dr. Brennan, last question here.
02:36 I mean, for those in New England, many people that live there for a long time, certainly
02:41 they they can remember hurricanes coming in from the south and southwest.
02:45 But, you know, Lee has at least an opportunity to take somewhat of a I don't want to say
02:50 a rare track.
02:51 Maybe let's call it unusual that it starts to bend in from the west.
02:55 Yeah, that could be unusual, as we do expect somewhat of a somewhat westward shift here
03:01 as we get up into the Gulf of Maine, and that can change the wind direction and sort of
03:04 the the way the impacts are coming from.
03:06 You know, everybody appears used to nor'easters with that strong northeasterly wind in the
03:10 winter.
03:11 But the impacts here are going to be a little different, different wind direction, leaves
03:13 still on the trees.
03:15 So there could be some more substantial impacts from those higher winds, especially out in
03:18 Cape Cod and the islands and in portions of Maine where we could get those stronger wind
03:22 gusts.
03:23 All right.
03:24 Dr. Michael Brennan, director of the National Hurricane Center.
03:26 Excellent points.
03:27 And Dr. Brennan, thank you so much.
03:29 And of course, we always appreciate all the information that the National Hurricane Center
03:34 provides the public.
03:35 Thank you so much for joining us here this morning.
03:38 Thanks.
03:39 All right.
03:40 All right.
03:41 Here's the latest with Hurricane Lee.
03:44 The sustained wind still at 100 miles per hour, the movement north at 12 miles per hour.
03:49 That movement should continue as we go over the next couple of days.
03:53 Dr. Brennan was talking about this and we've been highlighting this as well.
03:56 Such a large hurricane as far as the wind field is concerned, but it is going to lose
04:01 wind intensity for a number of reasons here.
04:04 Take a look at the water vapor loop here.
04:05 And what you can see is on links to here is that drier air now is wrapping in around the
04:11 storm center.
04:12 You see that?
04:13 That's the yellow shading.
04:14 That's one of the reasons why it's weakening.
04:16 But also the center of circulation is located south and to the southwest of where you see
04:23 all of the moisture, you know, by the white shading.
04:25 What does that mean?
04:26 You're getting wind shear, winds from the west southwest.
04:28 This is the trough that's going to continue to pull it northward here over the coming
04:32 days.
04:33 But then it lifts north and then with our next trough setting up farther west and kind
04:38 of this trough is a magnet pulling lead toward it.
04:42 That's why we're afraid there's going to be a bending in from the north, from the south
04:47 and also the southeast.
04:48 So more of a northwesterly movement here.
04:50 We do believe there's going to be landfall anywhere as early as eight o'clock Saturday
04:55 night southwest tip of Nova Scotia, perhaps 12 o'clock midnight early, early Sunday morning
05:02 down east or near the Maine and New Brunswick border there.