00:00Joining us right now is AccuWeather, the lead hurricane expert, Alex DeSilva.
00:06And Alex, before we get to what's going on now, what a weekend for Aaron as it moves north of Puerto Rico.
00:15Yeah, it certainly was extremely impressive.
00:17We just saw explosive development with this storm, moving over those really warm waters.
00:23No wind shear.
00:24Just exploded from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in about 24 hours or so.
00:2978 millibar drop in pressure.
00:32Very, very impressive.
00:34Now, let's take a look at Aaron right now here this morning.
00:38It's about 180 miles to the south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
00:44The movement, Alex, it says northwest at 13, but we've been watching it.
00:50It's been moving more west than northwest here over the last, at least the last few hours.
00:57Yeah, and a lot of times these really powerful hurricanes, a lot of times they tend to bobble around and wiggle.
01:03And this one has really wiggled west here over the last 12 to 24 hours.
01:07And I'm worried that the storm might be continuing to move a little further west.
01:12It doesn't look like it's going to hit the United States directly, but it could hang a little bit more on that western side of the cone.
01:18You know, one of the tracks that I looked at for North Carolina was Hurricane Earl in 2010, which came between nearly 100 miles offshore.
01:27That would be a big problem.
01:28We'll get to that in a second.
01:30But, Alex, you and the team have been looking at this.
01:32You believe that there's going to be what we call another eyewall replacement cycle.
01:37It just underwent one of them several hours ago, and you think it's happening again?
01:41It does look like that.
01:42Nearly all major hurricanes, Category 3, 4s, and 5s, undergo at least one eyewall replacement cycle during their lifetime.
01:49And essentially it's like a snake shedding its skin where a new eyewall will develop outside of the old eyewall
01:55and contract inwards and essentially choke off that inner eyewall.
01:59It's a completely normal process in these really powerful hurricanes, but what happens is the winds might come down a little bit, but the wind field expands.
02:08And so that's very concerning that if we go through another eyewall replacement cycle, that wind field is going to expand,
02:15and then potentially those impacts could impact the Carolina coastline.
02:19All right.
02:20Let's take a look at the wind shear here.
02:22Now, the entire history of Aaron since this weekend, it's been in low wind shear, but our wind shear map shows you
02:32that while there's a little less wind shear in the short term, by tomorrow and especially Wednesday, it's in at least some moderate wind shear.
02:42Indeed it is, but the thing is that these hurricanes that really have an established core,
02:46they can do a little bit of a better job of fending off some of that wind shear.
02:50It doesn't look like the storm is going to really intensify back into a Category 5 hurricane,
02:55but it might be able to hold its own as a major hurricane for several days despite that increase in wind shear.
03:01All right.
03:01Let's talk about the track.
03:03We always talk about the first fork in the road here was Sunday, Monday, and a Tuesday.
03:07A couple of things going on in the short term here.
03:10The dip in the jet stream off the east coast, that was the front that's moving away.
03:14But more importantly, it's been the strength of that Bermuda high that has continued to push Aaron west.
03:22And it looks like it's going to continue to do so here over the next couple of days.
03:25You know, the storm just continues to drift westward.
03:28Again, we think it's going to miss the United States from a direct landfall, but it just keeps getting closer and closer.
03:35And that's the trends we've been seeing and looking at the live satellite right now.
03:39It continues to drift west as we speak.
03:42Now, and then here's the other big time frame, Wednesday.
03:46Now, this is the front across the Midwest.
03:48If the modeling is like this, that the jet streams farther south and stronger in the Virginia,
03:55then that should steer air in east, maybe keeping it, what, maybe 300 miles east of the Outer Banks.
04:02That would keep tropical storm force conditions offshore.
04:05But there is a possibility this can get to within 100, 150 miles if that dip in the jet stream ride is weaker, Alex.
04:12Yeah, that's the case.
04:14And then also if the Bermuda high is a little bit stronger and pushes that storm a little bit closer.
04:18That's why on our cone we have this kind of wide cone there near the Carolina coastline.
04:23It could come all the way within 100 miles or it could come within 500 miles,
04:28potentially if it helps the far eastern side of the cone.
04:30But I am a little bit worried that the storm might move a little bit west of that center point of the cone.
04:37All right.
04:38AccuWeather lead hurricane expert Alex Da Silva.
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