It’s way too early to take this seriously, but the GFS model has been showing a hurricane to develop and be blocked from eastern movement so that it hugs the mid Atlantic coastline sometime in the timeframe of next Wednesday thru Friday.  As depicted currently, this could easily rival hurricane  Sandy.  There have been several model runs showing this possibility.  Again, way too early, but this needs to be watched.

A quick update.  The model tracks have changed significantly over the past 24 hours.  A greater number of models take the storm due northward, relatively far off the east coast, but hitting New England  next week.  This track would have a minimum impact on our area.

This morning’s NAVGEM still had the storm moving into the Carolinas.  Haven’t been able to obtain the afternoon run yet.  Will update again later.

Update: This afternoon’s NAVGEM follows the pack and shows Joaquin staying off the coast. Its path is now very similar to the official NHC track.   Looks like this storm will have minimal effects in PHL; we may not get any rain directly from this system.  Even more amazing,  if the storm is far enough offshore, we might get crystal clear skies due to subsidence far from the eye of the storm. 

The forecast for the potential path of Hurricane Joaquin  continues to change., with the range of solutions– most have the storm  making a  turn into North Carolina , then making a sharp turn over land towards the Delaware Valley, affecting us as a tropical storm.

A few models have a track directly to the Chesapeake Bay area.   The fewest number of models have the storm bending east out to sea.

Timing and intensity has also changed, with the actual storm or remenants reaching our area  in the Monday to Tuesday time frame.  Some models have the intensity as a Category 3 storm before landfall, while a few now have it as an early Category 4 hurricane.

My favorite model for tropical sytems, the Navy NAVGEMS, has the storm entering South Carolina Sunday and weakened remnants making it north to our area.   This model differs signficantly from the official NHC track which now takes the hurricane directly up near Delaware/NJ coasts.

The GFS has moved to very northward movement missing us and hitting southern New England.   So predicted tracks are really all over the place.

Regardless of the final intensity and location, many models have the moisture ouflow of the storm being picked up by upper winds and converging on the stalled frontal boundary just to our south, resulting in heavy rains unrelated to the actual storm location during the weekend.

So this is still a difficult impossible forecast to nail down.   Will update this evening.