National Hurricane Center's forecast track for Maria, issued 9/7/2011 11pm.

Hurricane Katia was a major story over the last week as she churned in the South-Central Atlantic Ocean. However, now that she is recurving to the north and northeast, the main story will become the two new named storms, Tropical Storm Maria and Tropical Storm Nate, in the Southern Atlantic and Southern Gulf respectively. Maria has sustained winds near 50 miles per hour, and Nate with winds near 45 miles per hour, at the latest National Hurricane Center (NHC) update from 11:00pm (September 7th). Tropical Storm Nate is forecast to loop back to the northwest in the Gulf of Mexico, and then strengthen as he heads westward towards the Mexico coast. At the time, Nate is not forecast to make landfall on United States landfall, and certainly will not affect our area as he moves westward in the Gulf of Mexico. 


Maria will certainly be the bigger topic of conversation in our area, as she continues on a northwest heading from the south-central Atlantic towards the Carribean. She is currently forecast to pass north of Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic this weekend. Although she is beginning farther south than Katia, early indications from forecast models are that Maria may take a similar path between the East Coast of the US and Bermuda, affecting neither. That being said, the system is still very far from land and several days away from her approach towards the United States. Much can change over that time span which could affect her ultimate path. We will certainly be keeping a close eye on her in the meantime.


Stick with us over the next several days, as we have introduced a new Tropical blog post which will be updated at the very least twice a day. We'll be sure to link the main blog post forecast to this post as well. 


Article written by John Homenuk,  September 8th, 2011 at 12:08am. Looking for a forecast? See New York Metro Weather's Long Range Forecast for the current work week, or view our Technical Forecast Discussion for the more serious weather enthusiasts. Also, check out our new Forecast Overview tab. For up to the minute details on forecasts, watches, warnings, and alerts, follow us on Twitter and Facebook.