We have the usual squeeze play between a High pressure area to the North and an area of low pressure to the South/Southeast creating strong winds. The low is expected to strengthen a little and move closer to the area. When a high and a low are fairly close together, you get a force between them called the pressure gradient force.
The winds will pick up this evening into tomorrow. Winds are expected to GUST to 60mph near the coast. Minor to moderate tidal flooding is forecast for early tomorrow morning, and then again tomorrow evening. The tidal flooding will be worse than Hanna, but not as bad as the 2006 Nor'easters. There is the outside chance that the low strengthens rapidly. Then the winds will really pick up and tidal flooding will be worse. However, this is not favored in the forecast. There is not a lot of upper level energy to spin up the system. But the low may become subtropical/tropical. I won't go into the technicalities of that. But if that happens, then it can feed off of the warm ocean waters which are generally in the upper 70s. Either way we will probably see scattered power outages tomorrow.
The low will pass to our West which kind of stops it from being a true Nor'easter. Usually Nor'easters move to the North or Northeast. Things will improve tomorrow night as the system begins to move away from us.
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I am one of the meteorologists at WAVY-TV. I grew up in Illinois, but I've been in the Southeast for several years now. I've had experience with every type of weather from floods to blizzards to hurricanes. I've even been able to chase tornadoes in an educational organization. I look forward to talking to people about Hampton Roads weather.
Member Since: 7/13/2007
