The East Coast has dodged a huge bullet with this one. Hurricane Earl lost to a strong cold front moving through the eastern US, thus keeping Earl further off the coast.
This is one where the weather models and forecasting was pretty spot on. The storm turned as expected.
Hurricane Earl weakened to a Category 2 storm with sustained winds of 110mph right before its rain bands came on shore in North Carolina and southeastern Virginia. The eye of the storm passed 85 miles off Cape Hatteras NC through the early morning hours today and is moving North/Northeast at 21mph.
Though North Carolina and southeastern Virginia didn't take a direct hit they were still hammered with hurricane force winds and driving, horizontal rain fall. Monster surf eroded away beaches and storm surge along with blanketing rain flooded numerous areas.
The storm will pass Maryland, Delaware and New Jersey coastlines throughout today with the eye of the storm staying about 200 miles out to sea. These spots will see tropical storm force winds and heavy rain bands through Friday.
Tonight and early tomorrow morning Long Island, Cape Cod and other surrounding islands will be closely grazed by the teeth of this storm. It may even come closer than it did to North Carolina. The positive is Earl should only be a Category 1 by that point; the negative is these places will still see hurricane force winds, brutal surf and heavy, driving rain.
On the bright side for everyone it looks like a beautiful holiday weekend after this storm moves out today and early tomorrow!
-DT
Sent via BlackBerry from T-Mobile
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