No more Ophelia!

After a life cycle, then regeneration, then a whopping Category 4 hurricane, Ophelia is gone for good. Ophelia struck the Avalon Peninsula this morning and caused little to no damage reported so far. Most of the heavy winds were offshore, so therefore the island and peninsula only got just a little bit of rain.

Tropical Storm Philippe is still in the Atlantic. This system has been a nuisance in resisting to dissipate in the spite of destructive wind shear. Philippe is currently moving toward the west-southwest and will continue to do so until the cold front that swept the east coast recently picks Philippe up and makes a sharp turn to the northeast. Philippe has surprised us all, so it won't be out of the question that Philippe makes hurricane status in the next couple days. It'll be interesting to see how strong Philippe finally does get.

We had a surprise invest today. Just as fast as it was declared, it was deactivated. Invest 92L formed from an extratropical storm to the northeast of the Azores. It has been moving southwest and is making a turn toward the west-northwest. If this system continues to do so, it may encounter more favorable conditions. In the next couple of days, it'll be interesting to see if we can get one of those subtropical/tropical systems that form from non-tropical entities. The last storm to do so was Tropical Storm Grace in 2009. Grace peaked as a strong tropical storm and also set a record for the farthest northeast a storm has formed. This system could be similar to Tropical Storm Laura in 2008. It's a wait and tell situation.

Models continue to indicate that sometime next week we will need to pay close attention to the Caribbean for possible development. However, a new entity has sparked interest on the models. With the pressure gradient between high pressure over the Eastern CONUS (Continental United States) and the low pressure in the Caribbean, the gradient might be enough to support subtropical development of a trough split. This could be one of those surprise storms. Any such storm to form will be rather large, and windy. This could possibly be Subtropical Storm Rina since models are forecasting this storm to form before the real tropical one in the Caribbean. In any situation, Florida will need to monitor this storm for possible very rainy weather and very strong winds, potentially up to gale force.

Tropical Storm Nalgae has left his mark on the country of the Philippines. Nalgae is now a disorganized storm with winds only at 50mph. Nalgae is expected to remain this way as it makes a second landfall on the country of Vietnam.

Matt