After one of the slowest starts to hurricane season in the past twenty years, the hurricane season of 2009 has exploded with activity over the past 48 hours.

And kicking up the coast and well inland.
FPS buoy has the numbers.
Pretty windy here in the Piedmont.

Wunder:

A powerful extratropical storm (94L) with some tropical characteristics is bringing tropical storm-like conditions to the waters just offshore the U.S. coast, from South Carolina to Virginia. QuikSCAT data from this morning and last night (Figure 1) show that tropical storm-force winds of 40-50 mph cover a 400-mile swath of ocean just offshore the North Carolina coast.

Tropical Storm Fay to become a hurricane.

Via Reuters:

Despite the mountainous terrain of Haiti, which had been expected to hamper the storm’s development, Fay held together quite well overnight, the Miami-based hurricane center said.

The storm’s forecast track had also shifted a little to the south and west, meaning it would spend more time than initially expected over the warm waters that provide tropical cyclones with fuel, and it was now expected to strengthen into a hurricane as it approached the southern Cuban coast.

OK, that was fast.
Tropical Storm Cristobal forms off the Carolinas coast.

You want to read this;

And pay a virtual visit to BUOY 41004

Not something you want to see just off the coast — a rapidly organizing tropical depression.

Masters:

None of the models forecast that TD 3 will intensify beyond a 50 mph tropical storm, due to the relatively cool water temperatures, moderate wind shear, and the presence of dry air nearby. I think TD 3 is organizing a bit more than the models are expecting, and has a 50% chance of becoming a 50 mph tropical storm by Monday.

National Weather Service

Bertha is now a hurricane.

If you recall, in 1996 Hurricane Bertha hit the lower NC coast and did some pretty nasty damage. Drove down the day after and there was a lot of erosion.

She cleared the way, so to speak, for her big sister — Hurricane Fran.

Prediction models for Bertha 08 are unclear, but we should keep an eye out.

Dr. Jeff explains.

Looks like the second tropical storm of the season — Bertha — is chugging along.

Here’s the five day forecast map
And Dr. Jeff’s take

Bertha’s at 25° West longitude is the farthest east a tropical storm has ever formed in the Atlantic so early in the season.

He also notes that it is likely that this means an active season.
Here’s the latest NWS advisory

Lian Xie, a professor in the Department of Marine, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at N.C. State, and graduate student Elinor Keith said Wednesday that their forecasts call for 13 to 15 named storms in the Atlantic Ocean, the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea. Six to eight of the storms could become hurricanes, they said.

The Atlantic hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30.

The southeast coast of the U.S. could see one or two named storms make landfall, and there is a better than 50 percent chance that at least one of the storms will be a hurricane, Xie said.

Spent a little while in a slave cemetery not far from where I live.
A sad place for all kinds of reasons with sunken depressions and stones in a row.
As I wandered around and photographed the stones, had a Blind Lemon Jefferson song running through my head.

See That My Grave Is Swept Clean

Well there’s one kind of flavor I’ll ask for you
Well there’s one kind of flavor I’ll ask for you
There’s just one kind of flavor I’ll ask for you
You can see that my grave is kept clean

And there’s two white horses following me
And there’s two white horses following me
I got two white horses following me
Waiting on my burying ground

Did you ever hear that coffin sound
Did you ever hear that coffin sound
Did you ever hear that coffin sound
Means another poor boy is under the ground

Did you ever hear them church bells toll
Did you ever hear them church bells toll
Did you ever hear them church bells toll
Means another poor boy is dead and gone

And my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
And my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
And my heart stopped beating and my hands turned cold
And I believe what the father told

And there’s one last flavor I’ll ask for you
And there’s one last flavor I’ll ask for you
And just one last flavor I’ll ask for you
You can see that my grave is kept clean