TSR Storm Alert - Intense Hurricane EARL

Tonight Hurricane Earl will make a run up the east coast of the US. Earl is expected to scrape North Carolina's Outer Banks around midnight and scoot up the coastline towards New England. Earl will parallel the coast bringing Tropical Storm force winds to Virginia, Delaware, New Jersey and Long Island. Storm track projections indicate that Earl will make a direct landfall on the Massachusetts coast at Cape Cod and Nantucket Island.

Hurricane Earl path stretches from North Carolina to Boston Harbor(The Christian Science Monitor)

Hurricane Earl, some 300 miles south of North Carolina's Cape Hatteras, has now prompted tropical-storm or hurricane warnings from the Tar Heel State's coast to the Massachusetts-New Hampshire border.

Coastal New England from Westport, Mass., to Hull, a town at the end of a peninsula forming part of Boston Harbor, is the latest swath of coastline to come under a hurricane warning.

From the North Carolina-Virgina border up to Westport, the entire coastline is under a tropical storm warning. The Delmarva Peninsula is under a hurricane watch as well.

--snip--

"The storm is "pretty much right down the track we we've been anticipating now for two days," he says.

But the storm's track isn't the only factor feeding concerns about the storm's effect on the Eastern seaboard. Hurricane Earl's winds extend far beyond its tight central eye. Earl is a broad storm, with tropical-storm-force winds extending some 200 to 230 miles from the center. Hurricane-force winds extend for about 90 miles from the eye.

And Earl could get larger. The storm appears set to undergo a process called eyewall replacement -– common to major tropical cyclone, notes Dr. Read.

Essentially, the existing eye vanishes after being surrounded by another wall of rainclouds. This outer wall becomes a new eye, with a larger diameter. That has the effect of pushing tropical-storm and hurricane-force winds further toward the storm's edges than they had been.

As Hurricane Earl moves north, the storm is expected to steadily decrease in strength. The size of this storm is suh that the effects will be felt quite a good distance inland even as Earl decreases from a Category 4 storm to a Cat 2 tonight.

Earl path is expected to hamper Labor Day weekend shore plans(Star Ledger)

Earlier tonight, the center of the hurricane was 440 miles south of Atlantic City, and although the storm had weakened from a category 3 to a category 2, it still was packing winds as strong as 110 mph. The U.S. Census Bureau estimated 26 million people from North Carolina to Maine could face hurricane or tropical storm conditions, based on the projected path of the storm.

The outer bands of Earl are expected to brush the southern Jersey Shore at about noon Friday and rapidly move north toward the eastern end of Long Island by late in the evening.

However, coastal communities in Cape May, Atlantic and Ocean counties could start feeling some sustained tropical storm-force winds as early as Friday morning, the National Weather Service said. The entire Jersey Shore should brace for the possibility of tropical storm conditions, including up to an inch of rain and winds stronger than 50 mph during the early afternoon and late afternoon.

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N Atlantic: Storm Alert issued at 2 Sep, 2010 21:00 GMT (5:00 pm EDT)

Intense Hurricane EARL (AL07) is forecast to strike land to the following likelihood(s) at the given lead time(s):
Red Alert Country(s) or Province(s)
the United States
probability for CAT 1 or above is 80% in about 33 hours
probability for TS is 100% within 9 hours
Canada
probability for CAT 1 or above is 45% in about 45 hours
probability for TS is 85% in about 45 hours
Red Alert City(s) and Town(s)
Siasconset (41.2 N, 70.2 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 80% in about 33 hours
probability for TS is 95% in about 33 hours
Hatteras (35.2 N, 75.6 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 75% within 9 hours
probability for TS is 100% within 9 hours
Chatham (41.7 N, 70.1 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 75% in about 33 hours
probability for TS is 95% in about 33 hours
Saint John (45.3 N, 66.1 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 35% in about 45 hours
probability for TS is 85% in about 45 hours

Yellow Alert City(s) and Town(s)
Kitty Hawk (36.1 N, 75.7 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 20% in about 21 hours
probability for TS is 100% within 9 hours
Capeville (37.2 N, 75.9 W)
probability for TS is 85% in about 21 hours
Montauk (41.0 N, 72.2 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 20% in about 33 hours
probability for TS is 85% in about 33 hours
Charlottetown (46.2 N, 63.1 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 10% in about 45 hours
probability for TS is 85% in about 45 hours
Halifax (44.6 N, 63.6 W)
probability for TS is 85% in about 45 hours
Norfolk (36.9 N, 76.2 W)
probability for TS is 80% in about 21 hours
Providence (41.8 N, 71.4 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 25% in about 33 hours
probability for TS is 80% in about 33 hours
Fredericton (45.9 N, 66.7 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 20% in about 45 hours
probability for TS is 80% in about 45 hours
Atlantic City (39.0 N, 74.8 W)
probability for TS is 75% in about 21 hours
Boston (42.3 N, 71.0 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 20% in about 33 hours
probability for TS is 75% in about 33 hours
Belmar (40.1 N, 74.1 W)
probability for TS is 75% in about 33 hours
Bangor (44.5 N, 68.5 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 30% in about 45 hours
probability for TS is 75% in about 45 hours
Salisbury (38.3 N, 75.6 W)
probability for TS is 65% in about 21 hours
Portland (43.5 N, 70.4 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 15% in about 45 hours
probability for TS is 65% in about 45 hours
Hartford (41.5 N, 72.7 W)
probability for TS is 65% in about 33 hours
New York (40.7 N, 73.9 W)
probability for TS is 60% in about 33 hours
Augusta (44.3 N, 69.8 W)
probability for CAT 1 or above is 10% in about 45 hours
probability for TS is 55% in about 45 hours

Green Alert City(s) and Town(s)
Wilmington (34.2 N, 77.9 W)
probability for TS is 50% within 9 hours
Concord (43.2 N, 71.5 W)
probability for TS is 45% in about 33 hours
Philadelphia (39.9 N, 75.2 W)
probability for TS is 45% in about 21 hours

Note that
Red Alert (Severe) is CAT 1 or above to between 31% and 100% probability.
Yellow Alert (Elevated) is CAT 1 or above to between 10% and 30% probability, or TS to above 50% probability.
Green Alert (Low) is TS to between 31% and 50% probability.
CAT 1 means Hurricane strength winds of at least 74 mph, 119 km/h or 64 knots 1-min sustained.
TS means Tropical Storm strength winds of at least 39 mph, 63 km/h or 34 knots 1-min sustained.

For graphical forecast information and further details please visit http://www.tropicalstormrisk.com/

This alert is provided by Tropical Storm Risk (TSR) which is sponsored by UCL, Aon Benfield, Royal & SunAlliance, Crawford & Company and Aon Benfield UCL Hazard Research Centre. TSR acknowledges the support of the UK Met Office.