Tracking Soon-to-be "IRENE"

The models are still showing a developing "Irene" that will be crossing the Islands the next couple of days , en route to the Dominican Republic and from there the models take it across eastern Cuba and bring it to near southern Florida around Thursday.  As always with forecasting tropical systems, the track is very uncertain, but for several days now the big models have stayed in the same basic ballpark...ie, somewhere in the Southeast or Gulf states as to where the impacts could occur next weekend.

ECMWF track valid 12z Sat Aug 20 2011

Here is a look at the 12Z run of the European Model (ECMWF) from Saturday Aug 20, 2011.  It brings the storm into the east coast of Florida then works toward the Georgia coast and begins to pull inland toward Athens and then fills slowly over a couple of days. As the storm rains itself out of over the Southern Appalachians , it eventually gets pulled north and merges into the incoming cold front.  The GFS (American) model is nearly identical, but doesnt' stall the storm in northern Georgia.  The overall track could still be anywhere from southern Florida to the Eastern Carolinas or even anywhere along the Gulf states. If the storm does as the GFS and ECMWF have been showing the last few days, then the Southeast is in for flooding rains in addition to high winds where the storm comes inland. The flooding rains would be enhanced in the Southern Appalachians, especially where southeast flow slams into the southeast facing slopes of the escarpment in western NC, upper SC and northern GA.  Something to think about in case the worst case scenario pans out. In fact, the models are showing the worst case possible track for the most flooding rains across most of the western half of the Carolinas and nearly all of Georgia, but again the track could change.