Ever since the Washington Capitals bowed out to the New York Rangers in May, we’ve all been asking, Is it October yet? Well today it is, and here’s another reminder hockey’s coming soon: Hurricane Joaquin. I’ll let our bros at NOAA explain.
“I know we like to focus on the hurricane,” said David Novack, director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Weather Prediction Center in College Park, Maryland. But whatever track Joaquin takes, “we’re becoming increasingly confident and concerned about the heavy rainfall.”
The system that is now drenching the coast is a strange combination of conditions that Novack said he hasn’t seen before. It’s a low-pressure system 10,000 to 12,000 feet high that is unusual and deep for this time of year. And it’s not moving anywhere, so it can keep on dumping rain.
Storm No. 1 stretches from Florida to Canada on the weather map, resembling a giant hockey stick. That makes Joaquin the puck.
You guys, the weather’s playing hockey. It’s excited for the season to start too!
While earlier forecasts Wednesday brought Joaquin up the Chesapeake Bay, meteorologists like Frederick County’s own Amelia Segal now believe the category-four storm will be denied access to the coast by the low pressure system. You know, kind of like a Braden Holtby pad save.
Here is latest track of Joaquin, a powerful cat 4 storm. Little impact here but still lots of rain Fri/Sat unrelated pic.twitter.com/n6eGQCSJoo
— Amelia Draper (@amelia_draper) October 1, 2015
The hurricane’s maximum sustained winds have increased to 130 mph, as it batters the Bahamas. The storm is moving southwest at 6 mph and is expected to continue in that general direction for much of Thursday. Early Friday, it is supposed to make its turn north. And then it’s [puts on sunglasses] anyone’s game.
I don’t know about you, but I, for one, welcome this new hockey-playing hurricane.
