Hurricane Reconnaissance Ongoing

An Air Force hurricane recon aircraft is currently flying in and around the area of low pressure off the Southeast U.S. coast. So far based on the observations the strongest winds are almost 30 mph and the lowest observed pressure is around 1007 millibars, at best its intensity is that of a weak (sub)tropical depression. (NOTE: As of around 245 PM EDT to the north and northeast of the low (over the Atlantic) winds of 40-45 mph have been recorded by the aircraft)

Above is a bar chart of the wind (red bars) and pressure data (blue bars) plotted versus  the time along the bottom horizontal (x -axis).

The satellite presentation is also a bit better this afternoon as evidenced by a more circular appearance to the cloud features with respect to the surface low's location approximately 200 miles to the SSE of the SC/NC border.





Some of the rain associated with the low is already affecting parts of the Southeast coast and more rain is expected to fall over the next few days.

The low is expected to continue to slowly develop with  The NHC now giving a HIGH 80% probability for the low to become a subtropical depression or storm.

It is forecast to move toward the N-NW through the weekend and will likely cause moderately strong winds and spread heavy rain, rough surf and higher than normal tides to the coasts of North and South Carolina south to Georgia and the Florida east coast, too.

If the system attains winds of 40 mph or more, whether its subtropical or tropical it will be named  Ana.