Cindy to Bring Rain; Dennis Gets Stronger
Cindy has been reduced to a tropical depression, after making landfall near Grand Isle, Louisiana around 11:30 PM Tuesday evening. The first major effects of Cindy are being felt in Gwinnett County, with a tornado watch issued for metro Atlanta until 8:00 PM Wednesday night. The image to the right, courtesy of the National Weather Service, shows the predicted amount of precipitation between 8:00 PM tonight and 8:00 PM on Thursday.
The movement of the storm, and the fact that most of the rainfall will be in the lower eastern quadrant of the storm, means that the worst of the rain will be to the south of the Appalachian mountains. Metro Atlanta can expect up to two inches of rain, with amounts of up to five inches expected in the North Georgia mountains.
Meanwhile Tropical Storm Dennis is posing a major threat to Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and Cuba, where hurricane warnings have been issued. At 5:00 PM, the storm was 315 miles South-Southeast of Kingston Jamaica with winds of 65 MPH, just short of what is needed to become an official hurricane. Moving West-Northwest at 14 MPH, the storm will probably become a hurricane later today or tonight.
The best guess on Dennis’ path is to come northward across the Gulf, and land sometime Monday morning in approximately the same location as tropical storm Arlene did a few weeks ago. However, there is some indication that Dennis may track further west than the current prediction, and the forecast track would have to be adjusted for a landfall more towards Louisiana.
It’s probably too early to consider Dennis’ effect on the Atlanta area. One computer model predicts that a building high pressure system over the eastern part of the country will deflect Dennis over the Mississippi Valley and into Oklahoma, avoiding our area completely. We’ll probably have to wait until sometime this weekend before we’ll have a good sense of how the storm will turn out.
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