Remnants Of Lee Combines With Cold Front For More Rain

Good evening everybody.  Happy Labor Day!  The unofficial end of the summer is here.  There are also five days to go until the statistical peak of the Atlantic Hurricane Season, and things continue to pick up in the basin.  Lee has dissipated into a remnant low, but Katia is now a major hurricane and there is now a tropical wave in the Eastern Atlantic and a disturbance in the Gulf.

However, the most important concern at the moment is what’s left of Tropical Storm Lee.  On Monday morning, Lee was downgraded to a tropical depression.  While it is still producing torrential rains across Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia, it is now a remnant low.  What is left with Lee is now going to join forces with a cold front pushing in from the Midwest, and bring more rain to the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast.

A stream of moisture is riding up along the spine of the Appalachians, and heavy rains have already fallen throughout much of Central and Eastern Pennsylvania.  Some of the storminess moved into western parts of New Jersey during the day, but here in Northwestern Middlesex County there has only been a mixture of clouds and sun.  Conditions have been humid though with dew points into the low 70s.  

Up to two inches of rainfall is expected through Wednesday with the bulk of it occurring late Monday night into Tuesday morning.  A Flash Flood Watch is already in effect for the area until Wednesday night.  While rainfall amounts here in Central Jersey will be lower than that in Central and Eastern Pennsylvania, there will be enough rain to cause another round of flooding.  The ground has had over a week to dry out after Hurricane Irene, but they are still very saturated after receiving over 15 inches of rain in August.

Speaking of hurricanes and tropical storms, we are still watching Hurricane Katia in the Western Atlantic.  Now a major hurricane, Katia is expected to steer just clear of the East Coast of the United States.  The storm will get within 300 to 500 miles of the coast later in the week.  Two things that this storm will do.  First, it will bring large swells along much of the East Coast of the United States.  Second, it will be close enough to the coast to keep much of the moisture from what’s left of Lee away from Jersey.

There is still some doubt on what Katia will exactly do, but with frontal systems pushing into the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic this week, the models have the storm offshore even though they have been shifting back and forth.  Elsewhere in the tropics, a new tropical wave is pushing westward in the Eastern Atlantic.  Meanwhile, the models are picking up on a persistent area of disturbed weather in the Gulf of Mexico.  We’ll have more details on these shortly.