As of 5 AM this morning, the broad area of low pressure east of the Bahamas organized enough to become Subtropical Storm Nicole. Subtropical storms have some characteristics of tropical storms but also have some characteristics of mid-latitude low pressure areas. For our purposes, you can treat it as a tropical storm, and it should evolve into a fully tropical storm in the next day or two. The model predictions of where Nicole is likely to go have tightened up over the day today and show that it is expected to move westward and make landfall on the east coast of Florida somewhere between Cape Canaveral and Miami as a hurricane on Wednesday night. From there it will make a sweeping curve to the right and head over coastal Georgia and then accelerate up the East Coast, where it will drop a lot of rain, especially to the right of the storm track, wherever that ends up.
Nicole is a very large storm, as you can see from the size of the tropical-storm-force winds in gold on the map below, so impacts from the winds as well as rain will spread quite far away from the center of the storm. The winds will be made stronger by the presence of a strong high pressure area to the north, increasing the pressure gradient especially on the north side of the storm. The Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina coasts are likely to see significant flooding and erosion along with rip currents due to the persistent onshore flow as the storm moves along a path to their south.
Don’t focus on the center of the forecast track, because the models are still changing from one run to the next. Since it is such a large storm, you can be quite a ways away and still get impacts. I expect to see a lot of flooding in Florida again, as the storm goes right over the area that was so badly flooded during Hurricane Ian and the land there still has not drained off from all that water.
Now is the time to prepare for the storm if you are anywhere near its path. Take in loose objects so they don’t become projectiles. Put livestock and farm equipment in a safe place, and make sure that you have tree limbs that are weak cut down so they don’t fall and cut power lines or damage buildings.
Continue to follow the National Hurricane Center for the latest information and your local NWS office for the expected local weather.
