What could make Irene bad in New England.

We often talk about how a hurricane is a WARM CORE weather system. Meaning, the center of the storm is the warmest and it gets its energy from the warm ocean waters without any fronts.

The weather map showing a warm core (RED) center to Hurricane Irene over the Outer Banks of NC at 2 PM today.

All of us living in New England know about Nor'Easters of some good winter storms where you have a low pressure intensify and move of the coast. Those storms, are considered COLD CORE, meaning, the center of the storm is usually the coldest and the storm gets its energy from both the warmer ocean waters and the colder air. There are pronounced areas of warm and cold air

What Irene is going to do is to start ingesting colder air from a cold front that is currently stationary over New England, and a cold front approaching from the Great Lakes. So by late Sunday early Monday. Irene will be more like a Nor'Easter than a true hurricane.

The center of Irene is over New Hampshire. But note: There is a still a warm spot over NH, however, the greens which is colder air, begins to wrap around the cyclone and the warmest of air gets shunted well east into Atlantic Canada.   This will allow Irene to maintain strength well inland over New England.

A true tropical cyclone would weaken upon landfall, however, Irene will be getting re-enforcements from Canada and remain a very strong storm with heavy rain and strong winds.

When you get an area of warm moist tropical air, colliding against cold dry air, it sets the stage to ring out and with a slower moving storm, one can expect intense rainfall over central New England.

Potential Rainfall for Irene over the Northeast.

 More on the Boston area impacts in a later post.!