RICHMOND, Va. -- The Atlantic tropical season peaks September 10, and the tropics have been extremely active the past few weeks. The activity will continue awhile longer. There are currently three named tropical systems in the Atlantic.
Jose will track parallel to the East Coast, with the main impact being high surf along the coast.
Locally, we could see some wind gusts over 20 mph in the metro and over 30 mph at the coast from late Monday into Tuesday. Coastal flooding will be possible during the high tide cycles for areas near the Bay and ocean. Jose will curve away from the coast as it moves up towards New England. It will weaken as it moves over cooler water.
Tropical Storm Lee formed in the eastern Atlantic on Saturday afternoon. It is expected to track to the northwest and weaken.
Maria formed Saturday afternoon as well, but this storm will be very different from Lee. Maria has been developing rapidly and will continue to strengthen this week. It may become a major hurricane (category 3 or higher) as it tracks through the Caribbean. These are the same areas that were greatly impacted by Irma recently.
Maria's movement past the Caribbean is still very much in question. Computer models suggest anywhere from Florida to over to Bermuda. From the data so far, a track that curves away from the East Coast seems to be the best bet. However, impact to the United States will not be clear until at least the middle of this week. This will be after Maria moves into the Caribbean and we begin to get aircraft reconnaissance data to feed into the computer models.
At this point, the best thing is to stay up on the forecast over the next week. Any impact to the United States would not be until next Monday or Tuesday (September 25-26), and a lot will change in the coming days. Something to keep in mind: some of the initial Irma tracks brought the storm up to the Mid-Atlantic coast. The models got a lot more precise after the storm moved into the Caribbean. Many factors will influence Maria's movement, and some of those factors are not fully formed or in place yet.
More updates will be posted this week. The latest information can always be found in the CBS 6 Hurricane Tracker.
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