Gusty late Tuesday cold frontal passage may spark showers—gusty post-frontal “NNE” winds to follow with temp drop Tuesday night/Wednesday, but 90s return this weekend

PLUS Monday marked 33rd anniversary of 1990 Plainfield twister while Floridians prepare for Gulf Coast storm surge and Tuesday night landfall

“IDALIA” IS SLATED TO BECOME A HURRICANE

• “IDALIA,” currently northbound at 8mph of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, is slated to INTENSITY TO A HURRICANE by nightfall Monday and to become a MAJOR HURRICANE Tuesday night as it sweeps over the Gulf of Mexico toward a west coast Florida landfall, currently predicted to take place well north of the Tampa/St. Petersburg area. A “MAJOR HURRICANE” is one which has sustained winds at CAT 3 strength or greater—in other words, 111 mph or stronger winds.
• As a result of the anticipated rapid intensification of IDALIA and its predicted strength, the National Hurricane Center is out with storm surge forecasts. Those are forecasts in the projected rise of the ocean waters as winds pile the water against and over the coastline. The Hurricane Center always stresses NOT to look at the projected center track of the storm, stressing that a hurricane’s impacts extend far beyond its center/eye.
• It goes without saying the the latest advisories from the NHC should be monitored and nowhere more so than in areas under threat. Follow the latest advisories here: https://www.nhc.noaa.gov/
• Here’s a suite of graphics which lay out current thinking on the storm. This is including a series of guidance products on Idalia’s predicted movement on the abnormally warm ocean waters which will fuel the storm and on the hazards the storm will bring to bear on the Florida coastline and peninsula in the next 1 to 3 days.

• The rain-wrapped twister wasn’t visible, hidden by a blinding shaft of rain. 29 died and more than 300 injured. Plainfield High School was destroyed.
• It roared out of a desperately hot, humid atmosphere with 90-degree temps and dew points in the low 80s and because the deadliest August tornado on the books in Illinois and the ONLY U.S. F-5 AUGUST TORNADO.
• A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WATCH had been issued for the unusual late summer southeast-moving storm (unusual because most tornadoes in the area, particularly early season storms, move from the southwest).

THE CONSISTENCY AMONG A COLLECTION OF COMPUTER FORECAST MODELS INDICATING A DOME OF HOT AIR IS TO DEVELOP ACROSS THE MIDWEST THIS WEEKEND AND LINGER INTO NEXT WEEK IS STRIKING—AND ALSO REINFORCES THE NOTION THIS IS REALLY GOING TO HAPPEN

• When there is consistency among computer model projections of future weather developments, confidence in the the predicted developments increases. That’s the case with the prediction that A NEW DOME OF HOT AIR is to develop over the Midwest this weekend and predicted as likely to persist into next week as opening week of the new month of September 2023 gets underway.
• Check out the uniformity in this set of UPPER AIR FORECASTS produced on supercomputers out of a range of global meteorological centers. If these projections verify, it would appear a string of 90-degree days is ahead beginning this Saturday and Sunday. In fact, early projections suggest this weekend may end up more than 12 degrees warmer than this past weekend. If true, quite a change is on tap!