Models Say Hurricane May Strike Carolinas Around August 12

Well, here it begins! Marine Summer (August, September, and October) is approaching, and already there is a threat on the weather model charts. For the past few days, the Global Forecasting System (GFS) has been calling for a storm to form off the coast of Africa, traverse the wide Atlantic Ocean, and curve north to hit the Carolinas sometime in the middle of August. Here is what the past few runs have said. These results are from the GFS North Atlantic model runs, the Precipitation last 6 hours chart (Z = Greenwich Mean Time):

2007 July 25 12Z, brushes by Outer Banks and Cape Cod August 7 8am
2007 July 25 18Z, hits Miami August 6 2pm, then Wilmington August 10 2am then into central and eastern Virginia
2007 July 26 00Z, goes out to sea after a near miss off Carolinas August 7 8pm
2007 July 26 06Z, strikes Wilmington around August 12 beyond model range; near Wilmington August 11 2am
2007 July 26 12Z, powerful Bermuda high forces storm to south, running just south of Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico
2007 July 26 18Z, Possible storm sometime next week. Storm from Africa fizzles off US coast after cold front hits it, around August 10
2007 July 27 00Z, hits Wilmington, goes to western Virginia, then inland up the coast. In western Virginia August 11 8am.
2007 July 27 06Z, hits Florida, then Wilmington around August 13, beyond model range. South of Wilmington August 12 2am.

This seems like it is wildly bouncing back and forth, however, the trend seems to be consistent. Some sort of storm will form off the Africa coast, move westward across the Atlantic, and strike the US, probably somewhere near the Carolinas. There is a chance it will hit Florida instead, or even both, as some of these runs indicate.

We are 12 to 16 days from the supposed striking of this storm, and weather models have been notoriously bad this far out. The first run showing Isabel in 2003 striking the US showed it striking Rhode Island; instead it hit central Virginia and northeastern North Carolina. A storm threatening South Carolina in 2004 July vanished completely after a few runs of consistently showing the storm.

In this case, there may be something occurring. The sea waters are warm, as marine summer approaches, without an El Niño and with global warming. Sand in the air over the Atlantic seems less this year. The people on weather forums such as Storm2k are already buzzing over this. To top it off, other models such as ECMWF, UKMET, and the Canadian model are showing something developing off the coast of Africa. The media so far have ignored it and you can't get anything from the local meteorologists. Still there is a likelihood that this storm will come and approach the US, and then it will be all over the TV screens. To me it looks like something is going to develop, and it will begin to show on NHC's reports probably by this Sunday. This is my own forecast, and there is a lot of uncertainty, but it seems that we need to be prepared for some kind of tropical system approaching the US sometime around August 12.