"Arthur" a little stronger

It's a little ironic as "Arthur" tightens up its spin and gets a little stronger, its drawing more clouds to its center and away from us. We should see more sun today, but it doesn't mean we are out of the woods as far as rainfall.

We could still see some feeder bands move over us bringing quick tropical downpours. "Arthur" is a couple of hundred miles to our northeast, and any hiccup there impacts us here.

Even though early Wednesday morning "Arthur" looked a little disheveled, its pressure dropped overnight, and that is a key indicator that it means business.

Its top winds have climbed from 40 mph on Tuesday morning to 60 mph today.



But where are those 60 mph winds?
Fortunately most of the strong gusty winds are offshore.
 The wind graph shows the red dot as the center of "Arthur".

Tropical storm force winds extend out roughly 80 miles from the center and are illustrated with the orange circle.

As of this moment, "Arthur" is a nuisance mainly for marine interest but it may be a lot worse in the days ahead.

NHC will have recon missions scheduled to keep close tabs on "Arthur's"Progress.



Here's what NHC is saying:

Arthur is still suffering the effects of dry air aloft being
entrained into the western half of the circulation, which
features only limited cold cloud tops. The primary convective band
is situated east and southeast of the center, and some semblance of
an eye has been visible in satellite and radar imagery and was
reported by the aircraft. 

This means there is a road block of dry air to its north, that it must defeat before it can get stronger. Because of this dry air, the only pocket of heavy rain present is on the eastern side of the storm. 

Until it can overcome this dry air issue, it will not reach hurricane status, but in the days ahead models suggest the road block will disappear and conditions will improve for "Arthur" to become the season's first hurricane.

The jet stream should pick up "Arthur" over the next day or so and drag it northeast very close to the Eastern Seaboard. 

The Barrier Islands of North Carolina could get Mother Nature's fireworks this 4th of July, and even Massachusetts could be grazed down the road as well.  

What can we expect?:

Another rain band or two can move over South Florida and the Bahamas this Wednesday. In the long term as Arthur moves away, we will return to our typical summer time pattern of morning sun, heat, and humidity with afternoon storms.

We'll keep you posted