Quincy

Not common for an essentially straight north from Bermuda with no recurve. As modeled, it even bended back NNW a bit. It’s a good thing it wasn’t a 200 miles west or it would have been a much higher impact event for the I-95 corridor.

Wow. No kidding. PWs mostly below an inch, outside of the Cape/isIands. That’ll do it.

Did Kev write this headline? https://grist.org/extreme-weather/its-gigantic-hurricane-lee-heads-for-new-england-and-atlantic-canada/

A nudge west, but still avoids US landfall. Curves right up into Fundy.

12z 3km NAM shows several hours with gusts over 60 mph on the outer Cape. Probably a bit overdone, but wouldn’t be surprised to see a few obs with gusts over 50 mph.

Even the SREF is east. Maybe it ends up being a dry weekend for TOL with just an occasional light breeze?

The outliers are shifting east and there’s more support for a wide right turn, than a rogue landfall left. I’d stick near the mean. Of course it could waffle a little either way, but there’s a higher probability for this to hit NS than for the Cape to see landfall. SREFs are going the same way. A few kept showing a left hook into SNE. Now those have tightened up to the east.

A tighter look at the 18z GEFS at 78 hours shows about half of the members east of the mean. Those to the west are relatively tight. Only about three members bring the center close to Cape Cod. None show a landfall there.

That’s what I mean. The totality of the runs over the past few days did not show a landfall. Kudos to NHC for not waffling and sticking closer to the consensus with continuity. Live and die by the model runs. Another great example that ensemble means can be very helpful when there’s uncertainty.

Granted the track with Lee is unique, we’ve seen this same thing play out almost every year. A tropical system threatens the East Coast. It’s not unprecedented for landfall, but it’s relatively uncommon in most cases. Model noise shows a few runs that either make or threaten landfall and people start freaking out. I did play into the hype a bit, but it’s time to accept that any substantial westward trend is done What percentage of the model runs/ensemble members showed a New England landfall over the past 3-4 days? 10%? 20%? 5%? I still think there’s a legit possibility that the Cape and parts of coastal Maine are affected with tropical storm force conditions and some flooding, but anyone hoping for a repeat of Bob, Gloria or Sandy are going to be disappointed.

GEFS is way SW from 06z, but a tick east of 00z. Solutions are consolidating and intensity has notched up slightly. (Mainly due to less spread dampening the mean)

GFS ever so slightly east. The wind field is still fairly intact. One of the stronger runs. Verbatim, looks like a cat 1 cane just SE of Maine, if the run is taken literally. There’s a little tease jog NW between 72-78hr before it makes the NNE turn into the Bay of Fundy.

You actually want slower movement now, so there’s less interaction with the initial exiting shortwave. Less opportunity to get tugged east. The models seek to be locking in. There’s some noise, but I don’t think there’s room for any major shifts west or east now that we’re getting inside of 72ish hours.

Keep in mind, this thing is going to bend back N and possibly even NNE for a time around the Atlantic ridge, before a likely shift back N/NNW. Not seeing any interaction with an approaching shortwave across the Upper Midwest/Great Lakes. That will be key if there are any hopes left for a westward turn. I imagine it won’t go much more west than the current consensus, but you never know.

Through 72 hours, it’s basically between 00z and 06z runs. Heading for Bar Harbor it looks like.