Hurricane Ophelia has stalled over the North Carolina coast, bringing upwards of five inches of rain to the outer banks. With 80 MPH winds, she is a Category 1 hurricane, and is expected to remain so until sometime Friday.

This picture, courtesy of NOAA, was taken about 8 AM Thursday, and shows the eye just to the east of the coast. Current predictions have the storm, once it starts moving again, staying to the east of the US coastline and moving out to sea.

Here in Georgia, we aren’t under any type of threat from Ophelia, however we are in for a bit of warm weather today, with temperatures expected to break 90 degrees, perhaps for the last time this year. This is in anticipation of a cold front moving through the area on Friday that could bring isolated areas the first rain we’ve seen in over two weeks.

The front will move out of the area on Saturday, making for a nice weekend. After that, our next chance of rain, albeit small, will be on Tuesday.

It has been a very quiet week for most of the Southeast, weather-wise, which is a good thing, given the recovery efforts going on in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama. Ever since the remnants of Katrina passed through Atlanta on August 30th, we have had nothing but dry weather, light breezes and low humidity — just what I would call Chamber of Commerce weather.

The only real threat to our weather in the next week or so is Hurricane Ophelia. This has been a difficult storm to track, with the Weather Service alternating between calling it a tropical storm and a hurricane, and her insistence in staying in about the same position, east of Daytona Beach Florida.

Oddly enough, the high pressure system that is giving us such pleasant weather is preventing Ophelia from moving further west. The latest positions have the storm moving onshore sometime on Tuesday or Wednesday just north of the South Carolina-Georgia border, and then moving right up the coastline before diminishing. However, NHC forecasters are admitting that the forecast remains uncertain, including the intensity the storm will have when it finally does move over land.

Long-range forecasts for the next two weeks keep Georgia warmer than normal, and drier than normal. Look for afternoon highs in Gwinnett County to reach the upper 80s to near 90 degrees through September 24th. If there is any saving grace to these warmer than normal temperatures, which should show a high of around 85 today, and 80 by the end of next week, it’s the nighttime temperatures in the 60s. That’s the result of low dewpoints allowing heat to radiate back into the sky once the sun goes down.

Keeping up with the rapid pace of tropical storm development is becoming difficult. Even though Hurricane Katrina passed through New Orleans just over a week ago, there have been four more tropical systems in the Western Atlantic.

Click to view full size image, courtesy of NOAA.

Lee was a two day wonder that started in the middle of the Atlantic on August 28th, then fizzled out the next day. It made another brief reappearance on the last day of the month, and again went nowhere, and the storm was downgraded on the first of September.

That same day, the Hurricane Center issued its first advisory on what would become Hurricane Maria. She is still active, and is moving northeast, away from the United States. Tropical Storm Nate is expected to develop into a hurricane sometime later today, and start moving northeast towards Bermuda, which might be affected.

What should capture the interest of those of us in the Southeast is newly identified Tropical Depression Sixteen. This storm has developed out of low pressure in the Caribbean Sea, and is presently stationary, about 130 miles southeast of Cape Canaveral, Florida. Wind speeds are measured at 30 MPH.

The depression is expected to develop into Tropical Storm Ophelia sometime later tonight or tomorrow. Her initial slow movement is forecast to bring lots of rain to northern Florida. As she picks up speed, the center of the storm is expected to pass near Jacksonville, and then through the Valdosta, Georgia area my midday Sunday, and finally, as a tropical low, head towards Atlanta. However, since the storm is not yet really moving, there is a lot of variability in where it might go, and how quickly it will get there.