Hurricane Imelda struck Bermuda head on during the midnight hours late Wednesday and early Thursday, plunging about half the archipelago into darkness as daylight broke Thursday.
Imelda’s degraded eye passed over Bermuda around midnight local time, bringing gusty winds to hurricane force, especially at elevation in hillier locations.
The highest official wind measurement came from a wind gauge 115 feet above sea level on the roof of the Commissioner’s House at Commissioner’s Point on the grounds of the National Museum of Bermuda, where sustained winds topped 78 mph with gusts as high as 99 mph. Winds largely stayed below hurricane strength at lower elevations as Imelda passed, especially on the northeast end of the archipelago where winds peaked at around 60 mph shortly before 1 a.m. at the international airport.
Imelda was beginning its transition into a non-tropical cyclone as it moved through Bermuda overnight so much of its wind energy was higher up than most conventional hurricanes. Though still early in their assessments, as of Thursday morning, officials indicated no significant damage or reported casualties so far.
Imelda completed its transition into a powerful extratropical cyclone by late Thursday morning and is racing out to sea.
New area to watch for next week
As we first mentioned in this newsletter on Tuesday, forecast models continue to advertise an extension of the traditional Cabo Verde portion of the hurricane season, which usually tails off quickly by October.
The National Hurricane Center added this area to its outlook late Wednesday, indicating a low chance of development next week of a disturbance rolling off Africa over the next few days. Guidance is modestly bullish on its odds by the middle to latter part of next week, and it’s something we’ll keep an eye on for the islands.
As far as U.S. threats go, very few tropical systems have formed this far east this late in the season and made it clear across the Atlantic to threaten the U.S. Only two systems have ever formed between Africa and the Caribbean in October or November and struck the U.S. as hurricanes – an unnamed hurricane that struck Louisiana in 1887 and Hazel in 1954 that formed just east of the islands and struck the Carolinas on Oct. 15 as a Category 4 hurricane.
Closer to home for the weekend
About 85 percent of tropical cyclones (tropical depressions, tropical storms, and hurricanes) that form in October and November do so outside the eastern Main Development Region or MDR, the deep tropical Atlantic east of the islands. By the latter part of the season, it’s more common to see formation closer in to the U.S., particularly over the western Caribbean.
The only thing we’re watching closer to home is the remnants of an old front. Some models suggest slow development with a low-pressure area along this dying front as it moves across Florida’s peninsula this weekend. It’s unlikely we’ll see much development with it, especially as it moves over land, but it could enhance locally heavy rainfall along Florida’s east coast, including for us in South Florida, this weekend.
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