TROPICAL STORM CRISTOBAL FORMS

SATURDAY TROPICAL UPDATE- Tropical Depression 3 has just been upgraded at 2PM/July 19 to a tropical storm, taking on the named Cristobal. A weak storm, packing winds of only 40 mph, Cristobal will still pack quite the punch to areas along North Carolina's Outer Banks. This is the projected storm track that Cristobal should take and as you can see, it heads harmlessly out to sea south of New England. We are not expecting rapid development with this particular system. Cristobal may strengthen to have winds of around 50 mph once it heads well SE of Nantucket. Latest guidance takes this storm even futher east of where they were showing its expected track earlier, so this is quickly becoming of little concern other than for shipping interests along the East Coast. Even where Cristobal makes a direct hit over, conditions will be similar to a glorified wintertime Nor'easter with wind gusts of 40 mph and heavy rainfall. The Outer Banks could see between 2-5" of rainfall with this storm system, which I am sure many of them will take, as they are in one of the driest periods in history right now. They will take every drop of water that that can get.

So, once again, this does not pose much of a threat for us here in New England, other than shipping interests and more heavy surf at the beaches. But when Cristobal passes SE of New England, we will be dealing with a storm system of our own moving through that will lead to a stormy and wet Monday anyway, so there won't be too many people at the beaches anyway. That said, be safe if you head into the water early this week, it will be rough out there. You know the drill now though, after having Bertha out there for a week building up New England's surf along the coast. Interesting enough, Bertha is still out there and is currently a hurricane again with max winds of 75 mph as she heads towards Iceland of all places and could hit them as a strong tropical storm or even minimal Category 1 Hurricane believe it or not. Bertha is breaking all the records.

Severe thunderstorms are likely this afternoon here in SNE as we are under a SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH. These storms are developing in NNE as we speak and will be heading into SNE between 4-6PM, which has prompted the NWS to issue the watch until 9PM EDT for all of SNE, even the Cape. So if you see the NW sky darken this afternoon and hear thunder in the distance, head indoors and be safe. We got ourselves one more scorcha tomorrow with highs getting back to that 90-95 degree category with more severe weather tomorrow evening.