Tropical Storm Kirk Spaghetti Models as Path Shifts

Tropical Storm Kirk, which is expected to strengthen into a major hurricane later this week, will make a northward shift in its path, taking the storm farther away from the U.S.
As of Tuesday morning, Kirk had maximum sustained wind speeds of 70 mph. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) anticipates the storm will become a hurricane by Tuesday night and a major hurricane by Thursday morning. Kirk formed in the Atlantic on Monday and will become the next major hurricane following Hurricane Helene, which made landfall last Thursday as a Category 4, with maximum sustained winds of around 140 miles per hour, near the city of Perry in the state’s Big Bend region.
Helene brought fatalities across several Southern and Southeastern states, with storm surge, devastating winds and torrential rain that threatened several dams and inundated Asheville, North Carolina, with floodwaters. More than 100 people were killed by the storm, the Associated Press reported.
However, Kirk is not expected to bring such devastating impacts to the U.S., according to the most recent spaghetti models—or computer models illustrating potential storm paths. Most models show Kirk turning northward.
National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologist George Rizzuto told Newsweek that Kirk would have to make a “pretty significant shift” to bring direct impacts to Florida and the eastern U.S.
“Most guidance shows it turning northwards pretty early,” Rizzuto said. “It would take a pretty significant shift in the upper-level pattern to allow that to trek all the way westwards, so there’s not too much concern with that system.”
The NHC is monitoring a disturbance on Kirk’s tail that has an 80 percent chance of forming within the next few days. However, Rizzuto said atmospheric conditions are not conducive to taking that system to the eastern U.S., should it form.
Although no direct hurricane impacts are expected along the Eastern Seaboard from Kirk or the storm following it, the storms could cause deadly rip currents to affect multiple states in the U.S.
Warnings related to the rip currents could be issued as soon as this weekend, a day or so before the expected conditions.
Rip currents can be caused by hurricanes or tropical storms that cause disturbances in the ocean, and they can affect a beach even if a tropical storm is hundreds of miles away, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration warns. Rip currents from Kirk will create dangerous swimming conditions, even as the larger waves attract people to the beach.
Rizzuto said that another system appears to be developing in Mexico’s Bay of Campeche that could be a cause for concern. The system has a 40 percent chance of developing into a tropical storm in the next seven days.
“If we are going to watch anything in the mainland United States, it would be that one,” he said.