Blog

Isaias is a hurricane; track forecast largely unchanged

/ July 31, 2020 at 9:17 AM

It’s not the most picturesque hurricane on record, but it will do: Hurricane Isaias, which was upgraded after Hurricane Hunters found winds near 80 MPH last night, is now churning through the Bahamas this morning. Isaias remains a Category 1 storm as of this morning with 80 MPH winds, and is moving NW at 17 MPH. It is expected to strengthen to a Category 2 storm with max winds of 100 MPH before weakening as it curves up the US coast this weekend.

Where’s it going?

Intermediate Advisory 13A from the National Hurricane Center as of 8AM Friday, July 31.

Since 5PM yesterday, Isaias’s forecast track has been relatively stable: cutting a path through the Bahamas before recurving parallel to the Florida, GA, and SC coastline, followed by a landfall somewhere in eastern NC late Monday/early Tuesday. Timing for adverse weather in the Lowcountry remains roughly between Sunday evening through late Monday/early Tuesday.

The track of the storm will be governed by a couple key steering components: a trough of low pressure moving into the eastern half of the country, and a weakening Bermuda high to the east. Isaias will thread the needle between these two features as it navigates its way up the Eastern Seaboard early next week.

The impacts picture begins to take shape, but is still highly uncertain

We are starting to get a better idea of the general impacts we may see from Isaias. It is still too early to tell how strong of a storm Isaias will be for us, though. Once again, we will be contending with a storm where a 20-mile wobble left or right makes a big difference as far as what we might feel here. But, we can still start to make out some details in the forecast picture now:

What to do today

I’ll have updates on Twitter throughout the day, and will do another post if things should change drastically. Stay tuned.


Follow my Charleston Weather updates on Mastodon, Instagram, Facebook, Bluesky, or directly in a feed reader. You can also get daily audio updates via the Charleston Weather Daily companion podcast, available wherever fine podcasts are listed. Do you like what you see here? Please consider supporting my independent, hype-averse weather journalism and become a supporter on Patreon for a broader look at all things #chswx!