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Thursday night we were just sitting down to our dinner onboard, when we heard–very close by–the unmistakeable sound of fireworks.  While we had been relaxing below, someone had moved a pair of pyrotechnic barges into position right off the Boston waterfront.  We still aren’t sure exactly what the occasion was, but we were treated to front row seats at a pretty impressive display.

Our Friend Irma

Planning ahead for large storms is always a challenge.  The further ahead you look, the more time you have to plan, but the less accurate the information you have.  Our plan in the past has been, and will continue to be, to assume the worst, and be pleasantly surprised when things are better than expected.

As always after one disaster, the news media is anxious to keep the pressure on, so they are already hyping Irma as the next Harvey. I have to avoid reading the popular press and pretty much stick the the official information to get input for my planning.  At this point I am looking further ahead than the official forecasts are comfortable predicting, so I look at the computer models the forecasters use to try to see what the reasonable range of possibilities are, being fully aware that the chances for an accurate forecast a week ahead are very small.

Right now the GFS model has a land fall for Irma right up the center of the Chesapeake, while the ECMWF model has the storm tracking offshore. Since our current position is right in between those two tracks, my conservative assumption that it is coming this way, and have begun planning accordingly.

The European Model says “Here”

The US model says “Here”

So our plan will be to head out of Boston as soon as the weather allows (Monday–we expect) and head south through the Cape Cod Canal toward Narraganset Bay, where there are many quiet backwaters to hide from nasty weather.  We had planned to stop at Provincetown out at the end of Cape Cod on our way out, but right now it looks like we’ll stop there next time we are in the area.We will keep watching, and as always, will modify plans as needed.