Update: Tropical Depression Eleven has already been upgraded and is now Tropical Storm Joaquin.

Some weather models shifted their predictions today from what they had been just before. Now New York City, along with much of the rest of the northeast US, is in the headlights of a weather event with some potential. We are now in the forecast cone of uncertainty of a tropical cyclone: currently it’s Tropical Depression Eleven, could intensify to become Tropical Storm Joaquin. Here is the track forecast map from the National Hurricane Center:

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There is still quite a lot of uncertainty with this system, with the GFS model predicting it to be less likely than the ECMWF does that we’ll be hit by this storm. There are faint echoes of Sandy in that model disagreement – the EC predicted landfall earlier than GFS did then too. It doesn’t look like Eleven/Joaquin stands much chance of becoming an event of that magnitude, though, at least not as a wind or surge event (though never say never, or at least not yet).

There does seem to be good potential for heavy rain. Maybe very heavy, as tropical moisture funnels up from the south into a cold front that will be hanging around our region for a few days. NOAA’s precipitation forecast for the next five days puts over five inches of rain on a very large stretch of real estate from the Mid-Atlantic up to northern Maine:

Some model runs are producing numbers as high as double that – around ten inches – for NYC. This is perhaps unlikely, but possible.

The media is starting to pick up on this. Jason Samenow of the Capital Weather Gang has a nice summary; Weather.com has picked it up; and here is a local NYC TV take on it. From a quick scan, this coverage looks reasonable. It’s giving a sense of what the more extreme outcomes could be, while clearly stating that the uncertainties are still significant. This is as it should be. This is in the “stay tuned” category.