Hurricane Gonzalo and Tornado Outbreak

After an extended break from weather updates, I am back with a lot of news about the current active weather.  The weather during the past week in Cleveland has featured the first frost (October 12) and a balmy 77 degree high (October 14). The unseasonably warm conditions were ended by a strong upper level system moving slowly east across the nation. This system generated more than thirty (30) confirmed tornadoes between October 12-15 that resulted in two (2) deaths. The deep trough associated with the system is moving off the East Coast and is lifting major hurricane Gonzalo north towards Bermuda, less than one week after Tropical Storm Fay impacted the island. In the central Pacific Ocean Tropical Storm Ana is organizing south east of Hawaii and is on a track to affect much of the Hawaiian Islands.

A tornado/severe weather outbreak occurred across the south central portion of the nation over a several day period with the worst activity on October 13, 2014. On this day the severe weather was centered on the Mississippi River valley as the atmospheric dynamics were the most conducive to destructive weather.

Currently the upper level low is slowly moving across Ohio generating cloudy and at times rainy conditions. High temperatures will be near 60 degrees today with a little sunshine.

Tomorrow the main system will move east as another colder system approaches from the west. High temperatures ahead of the system will warm into the middle and upper 60’s. Once the system pass temperatures will fall below normal for the next several days with high temperatures remaining in the lower to middle 50’s through Wednesday.

Looking ahead to the week of October 26^th, probabilities are trending toward above normal temperatures.

The tropical Atlantic is seeing late season tropical activity. Last week Hurricane Fay developed north of Puerto Rico and affected Bermuda with tropical force winds before moving east in the Atlantic and dissipating. This week Hurricane Gonzalo formed to the east of the northern Lesser Antilles and brought hurricane conditions to the British Virgin Islands. The storm then strengthened to a category 4 hurricane with 145 mph winds and it is heading towards Bermuda. The storm will generally weaken gradually but should affect Bermuda as a category 3 hurricane late Friday.

The Hawaiian Island chain is closely watching Tropical Storm Ana. It formed in the Central Pacific earlier this week and is expected to reach hurricane status as it approaches the main island. At this time Ana may make landfall on Kauai as a tropical storm early next week.