Hurricanes Jose And Maria Just Keep On Menacing

Visible satellite view of growing Hurricane Maria taken
just after sunrise as the storm bears down on the
Leeward Islands. 

This very busy hurricane season continues to keep pace today, as we now have more specific forecasts of how Hurricane Jose will affect New England. And Hurricane Maria is a terrible threat to a number of Caribbean islands.

Let's take the two big storms one at a time:

HURRICANE JOSE

Coastal New England is now getting ready for Hurricane Jose, which won't hit the region directly, but  will be big enough to make for a very nasty midweek.

A tropical storm watch is now in effect from the Delaware Coast to southeastern Massachusetts. Some computer models bring gusts over 60 mph to some coastal locations as Jose makes its closest pass late Tuesday and Wednesday.

There will almost surely be some trees and wires down in the areas covered by the tropical storm watch.

It's going to rain like hell on the Cape and Islands, too, with maybe three to as much as eight inches of rain expected on outer Long Island, Martha's Vineyard, Nantucket and the Cape.

Forecasters are watching this closely. Right now it looks like the heaviest rain won't get that far inland, minimizing the chances of widespread flooding. However, if the downpours go just a little further west than expected, places like Boston and New York could see some pretty unpleasant urban flooding.

It looks like coastal flooding, battering waves and rip currents will affect beaches in New England all week, too.

On the bright side, Jose is weakening as it approaches New England, as it's being worn down by strong upper level winds and colder ocean temperatures. (Hurricanes need warm ocean water to survive and grow, if the water gets a little too cool, hurricanes tend to weaken.)

Jose will stay offshore, it looks like, but either it, or its remnants will linger southeast of New England all week into next weekend. There's even a chance it could head south again, find some warm water and begin to rebuild itself. We'll see about that.

Up here in Vermont, the effects from Jose will be minimal. There probably will be some showers from Jose in the southeastern half of the state Wednesday.

DANGEROUS HURRICANE MARIA

Hurricane Maria was rapidly intensifying this morning as it approached the central Leeward Islands. Its top sustained winds were 90 mph early this morning, but Maria is forecast to become a major hurricane - Category 3 or 4 with winds of 125 mph or more.

Maria's track is roughly parallel to the one destructive Hurricane Irma took, but Maria's path is just a little south of Irma's.

The northern Leeward Islands, and the Virgin Islands, completely trashed by Irma, are now going to get raked by Maria. It's just awful, to say the least.

Even worse, with the track further south, the central Leeward Islands, which didn't fare terribly with Irma, will get a horrible blow.

Also, Irma skirted Puerto Rico just to its north, causing massive power failures and some damage on that island, but it didn't devastate the U.S. territory.

At this point, it looks like Hurricane Maria will probably go right over Puerto Rico Wednesday or early Thursday while it is at top strength, so this is a real scary moment for them.

After Maria is done with Puerto Rico, it will head toward the northwest, kind of on a path toward the U.S. East Coast. But for the mainland, it's not time to panic yet, for sure. While it's possible Maria could hit, the massive hurricane could turn out to sea as well.

Nobody knows for sure, so we'll just have to keep watching.