Heavy Rain Batters the East Coast, Hurricane Track Shifts East

The quiet weather trend continues for us, despite gusty northeast winds, but that is not the case for those along the east coast. Two different systems will impact and bring devastating flooding along the coast through the weekend.

Right now the atmospheric set up is basically a weather 'traffic jam'. It's called a Rex Block; this is essentially when you have a high pressure system directly north of a low pressure system. That is exactly what we are seeing in the east coast, we have a strong upper level high pressure system north of the great lakes which is north of a strong closed low over the southeast. This blocking pattern is also the reason we have the strong northeasterly winds today and tomorrow, and why we have seen them the past couple of days. This blocking pattern is basically not allowing weather systems to move east, allowing for a stationary front to set up over the east coast. We saw that front on Tuesday as a cold front that brought rain in the morning and the cooler temperatures we've seen this week. That front now positioned right along the Atlantic coast and is bringing torrential rain and flash flooding. Especially through the Carolinas and through Virginia. There are already flash flood advisories for the coast, affecting 31 million people. This system is seperate from Hurricane Joaquin.

Hurricane Joaquin remains a category four major hurricane with 135mph winds and a minimum pressure of 935mb. This is a very slow moving hurricane, that is tracking currently to the NW at 3mph. Currently it is bringing torrential rain and very strong winds to the Bahamas, and more hurricane advisories might have to be issued for Bermuda sometime today. Good news is, the track for Joaquin is starting to shift further east, which takes the east coast out of direct contact of the hurricane, but even if it skims the east coast, there will still be torrential rain fall as well as strong surf and strong winds. After already receiving extreme rain amounts along the coast, this additional rain will create even more of a flash flooding threat.

The forecast is still that - a forecast, and can change as we go forward. However, we are getting more and more confident of the track of Joaquin. The U.S hasn't seen landfall of a Category 3 hurricane or larger in over 9 years