Tropical Storm Chris
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Beryl is still out in the Atlantic and has a chance of once again developing into a hurricane according to a few models, but at this moment I also think we really need to look at tropical storm Chris, which could come dangerously close to the US mainland. Let's go over the 3 models ECMWF, GFS & NAM.
First ECMWF. The European model has Chris developing into a hurricane on Tuesday East of South Carolina. Then the hurricane moves up North reaching peak intensity on Thursday as a category 4 hurricane with wind speeds of 210 km/h (131 mph) and a minimum pressure of 964 hPa. In this model the hurricane stays about 120 miles away from the US coastline, but the hurricane could still have affects in North Carolina. Hopefully the hurricane will keep on this North-Eastern track and moves away from the US.
Now GFS. GFS is the model that predicts the weakest case for Chris. However, GFS has already been wrong a lot of times this year, while ECMWF & NAM have been more accurate. Let's look at it anyways. With GFS Chris also becomes a hurricane on Tuesday. The outer bands of Chris might go over the Outer Banks of North Carolina. However, after this the GFS model has Chris going almost completely to the East and to the North after that. Peak intensity is reached on Thursday South of Nova Scotia as a category 2 hurricane with wind speeds up to 161 km/h (100 mph) and a minimum pressure of 994 hPa. The storm could actually reach Nova Scotia as a hurricane on Thursday/Friday as a hurricane, becoming the first hurricane landfall on Nova Scotia since hurricane Arthur in 2014 and the first category 2 landfall on Nova Scotia since Hurricane Juan in 2003.
NAM is by far the scariest prediction and actually one of the scariest predictions for any hurricane I've seen this year so far. Let's hope it doesn't become a reality. NAM has Chris quickly intensifying into a hurricane on Monday, remaining stationary East of South Carolina. Then we see an incredible period of intensification into a category 5 hurricane on Tuesday. This is the furthest we can look at this point with NAM, but it looks like this hurricane is heading North-West, straight for North Carolina. Wind speeds are up to 255 km/h (158 mph) and the minimum pressure is 918 hPa. And the scariest thing is that the hurricane still seems to be intensifying at that point. Let's hope GFS is correct this time, which shows the safest and least powerful hurricane.
