TLDR: Franklin having trouble getting organized, making landfall this morning in the Dominican Republic, then parallel to US East Coast, problem for Bermuda? Harold made landfall in Texas yesterday, minimal impacts.
Franklin is making landfall on the south coast of the Dominican Republic this morning as a disorganized, minimal tropical storm. The main impact will be heavy rain and flash flooding in mountainous areas. Here is a link to the NHC’s Key Messages regarding Tropical Storm Franklin (en Español: Mensajes Claves), and the forecast impact swath using my TAOS/TC model:
After than, the storm is still expected to gain strength over the Atlantic and become a hurricane, although NHC is starting to slip in some weasel words about shear, and some recent model cycles have been less enthusiastic about that. Here are the major global model tracks as well as a graph showing the forecast wind speeds – the black link (official forecast) is at the high end of the estimates at the moment which, again, they don’t want to be on the low side and risk folks getting caught off guard. To be clear, at this point, no threat to the US Mainland, Bermuda will need to watch this for the late weekend and early next week, and the remnants or post-tropical system might annoy Vinland in 10 days or so.
Harold was never much of a storm, and looking at the NWS storm reports across Texas for yesterday almost all of the damage reports are of street flooding (although in New Braunfels, a local official amusingly reported a “6 inch diameter pecan branch down at the county courthouse photographed by county official.” ) Here’s the track and LSR’s for yesterday …
