That pic is what a post-tropical cyclone looks like. My colleagues, Bri Eggers and Rob Eicher both detailed what a “post-tropical” cyclone is in their blogs this weekend–some awesome reads in interested. To be honest, Hermine is behaving like an early fall nor’easter with the wind & rain action. Here is a sampling of the wind gusts that have occurred so far:
and while it’s true we’ve had winter nor’easters produce that kind of wind, the concern for the next few hours (up until ~11pm) is that these wind gusts
could lead to some tree/wind damage due to the fact that the trees have leaves (unlike in winter when a tree does not, wind can easily pass through the tree) as well as our drought–the roots couldn’t hold in dry soil. Some minor power disruption along the South Coast/Cape/Islands is possible until later this evening and then the wind will subside late tonight (under 30 mph) and through the day tomorrow. As for rain, it’s been disappointing. The storm has been fighting dry air (and losing) as bands of rain march in from the ocean. These rainbands are getting chewed up and eventually they too–like the wind–begin to fade away overnight with most towns less than .10″ and only a few lucky towns on the Cape/Islands/South Coast picking up more than .30″.
By tomorrow, Hermine begins to weaken considerably so plan on more a refreshing breeze than dangerous/damaging wind. The system will still be able to create quite a few clouds but little in the way of rain—likely just a few isolated showers. Wednesday sees further weakening of Hermine so less wind, more sun and also more humidity. While the northeast has been caught up in Hermine’s gyrations these past few days the rest of the eastern half of the country has seen a return to summer with building heat/humidity. This heat & humidity will return to New England by the middle & the end of the week. In fact, Friday & Saturday likely see temps back up around 90 degrees with high humidity. Same ol same ol
Updates on Hermine as needed over on twitter!
~JR