Over the Labor Day weekend, social media feeds flooded with stark warnings about a major storm slamming the East Coast of the United States next week. That hypothetical storm became Hurricane Lee on Wednesday, the National Hurricane Center said.
But as of Wednesday night, it was too early to say whether a major hurricane would make landfall along the Eastern Seaboard.
As of 11 p.m., the rapidly intensifying storm was more than 1,000 miles east of the Leeward Islands, in the northeastern Caribbean, according to the Hurricane Center. Lee had maximum sustained winds of 80 m.p.h. and was moving west-northwest at 14 m.p.h. No coastal watches or warnings were in effect.
But Lee, a Category 1 hurricane, was forecast to strengthen into a major one, with winds of at least 111 m.p.h., by Friday. The Hurricane Center said that swells from the storm would likely reach the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Bahamas and Bermuda over the weekend.
Some of the biggest hurricanes to hit the East Coast, like an unnamed hurricane that hit Long Island in 1938, or Hugo, which made landfall in South Carolina in 1989, began in a similar region of the central Atlantic as Lee, far from land. Although it could ultimately make landfall along the East Coast, it is just as, if not more, likely to stay out to sea and away from the United States.
Computer models that were run last weekend, before the current storm had strengthened enough to be named, had some social media users predicting that it might hit the East Coast as a hurricane.
Social media posts about a hypothetical storm’s avoiding land aren’t typically shared as much as an image of a forecast model that shows a major storm 14 days away from hitting a major U.S. city. That is why scary posts, such as one that warned of a “horrendous situation for the East Coast of the United States,” took off last weekend.
For now, there are too many unknowns and too many things that could change before Lee comes close to North America. It is likely that this will be a big storm and that it will move west before it turns north and then northeast. The question is when it will make that turn.
It all has to do with the steering currents, and as of Tuesday morning the computer forecast models were indicating an earlier turn toward the north and northeast. That would put Bermuda more at risk than the United States or Canada. More will be known as more data is collected this week and that data is incorporated into the computer models.
Spaghetti models show what could happen.
Sometimes multiple models are displayed on a single map with a line that plots where that computer simulation believes the center of the storm will be five, seven or even 14 days in the future. Known as spaghetti models, these mapped model outputs get their name from their resemblance to long strands of pasta.
The closer the lines are together, the more confidence it gives forecasters in what the storm might do. For the next few days, there is a pretty reliable consensus that the storm will track northwest.
When the spaghetti lines spread wider apart, forecasters have many more possibilities to contend with. There is a lot of spread beyond this weekend, which is why this storm will be important to keep an eye on. Right now everything is on the table.
Even if this storm doesn’t make a direct landfall anywhere, it is likely to cause rip currents and big waves along the U.S. East Coast next week. This storm is worth monitoring, but not worth freaking out about.
Johnny Diaz and Mike Ives contributed reporting.