Tropical Cyclone Franklin is forecast to pass well east of Eastern NC over the next few days, but long period swell combined with high tides will lead to an increased risk of coastal impacts into next week.
The NWS reports that the tropics are very active now.
To keep up with the latest tropical information, please visit the NWS MHX Tropical Page. There’s also a preparedness page with some great information on preparing for hurricanes.
By Sam Walker of WOBX. Reprinted with permission.
The peak period of hurricane season activity has arrived in full force, with the formation of four tropical storms between the tropical Atlantic and the Gulf of Mexico since Sunday.
None of the current activity is forecast to threaten eastern North Carolina, although there could be some increased long period swells early next week from what’s expected to become the second hurricane of 2023.
A disturbance moving towards the south Texas coast was upgraded to Tropical Storm Harold, the ninth system this year. That’s after tropical storms Emily, Franklin and Gert all formed over the last two days.
Emily has since become a remnant tropical wave, while Gert was downgraded to a tropical depression early this morning.
Franklin is forecast to move over Hispaniola and bring flooding rains to the Dominican Republic and Haiti before sliding east of the Bahamas and then out into the open Atlantic south of Bermuda and may become a hurricane over the weekend.
It’s eventual proximity to the southeast United States will mean waves generated by Franklin will start impacting our coast by Sunday, with an increased risk of rip currents likely.
Earlier this month, NOAA raised its prediction for activity in the Atlantic basin to be above normal for the rest of 2023.
Dare County and the National Weather Service have scheduled a Hurricane Preparedness Forum today at the Emergency Operations Center on Roanoke Island.
HATTERAS – Starting today, the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Hatteras-Ocracoke vehicle ferry route is expanding its summer departure schedule to meet demand on peak midweek days through Sept. 21.
From Tuesday through Thursday, the number of scheduled departures will increase from 36 to 52.
Between Aug. 22 and Sept. 21, the Tuesday-Wednesday-Thursday schedule will be:
From Hatteras: 5 a.m., 6 a.m., 7 a.m., 8 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11 a.m., 11:30 a.m., noon, 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 8 p.m., 9 p.m., 11 p.m. and midnight.
From Ocracoke: 4:30 a.m., 6:30 a.m., 7:30 a.m., 8:30 a.m., 9:30 a.m., 10 a.m., 10:30 a.m., 11:30 a.m., noon, 12:30 p.m., 1 p.m., 1:30 p.m., 2:30 p.m., 3 p.m., 3:30 p.m., 4 p.m., 4:30 p.m., 5:30 p.m., 6 p.m., 6:30 p.m., 7 p.m., 7:30 p.m., 9 p.m., 9:30 p.m., 10:30 p.m., and midnight.
Schedules from Friday through Monday will remain at their current levels, with additional unscheduled “shuttle” runs during high-congestion periods.
Ocracoke visitors also have the option of taking the Ocracoke Express passenger ferry, which makes three round trips daily between Hatteras and Ocracoke Village with reservations available at www.ncferry.org and 1-800-BY-FERRY.
Monday, Aug. 21
Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 8 pm): Ray Murray
Tuesday, Aug. 22
Morning bird walk, meet at NPS campground parking lot, 8:30 am
1718 Brewing Ocracoke (music at 7 pm): Barefoot Wade
Ocracoke Oyster Company(music at 7 pm): Bryan Mayer
Wednesday, Aug. 23
The NWS and Dare County will present a Hurricane Preparedness Forum at 2 p.m. at the Dare County Emergency Operations Center, 370 Airport Road Manteo. You can attend in person or virtually and participants must register online. See story here.
Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Bryan Mayer
Deepwater Theater: Ocrafolk Opry, 8 pm
Thursday, Aug. 24
OPS Porch Talk: Ocracoke Lighthouse, Michaela Davis, 1 pm
Bella Fiore: Trunk show with N.C, jewelry maker Julie Mills, noon to 5 pm
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Brooke & Nick
Ocracoke Oyster Company(music at 7 pm): Kate McNally
Friday Aug. 25
Ocracoke School grand reopening, 11 am. See flyer below.
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Kate McNally
Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Nick & Adam
The Breeze (music at 9 pm): Zack Brock & Good Intentions
Saturday, Aug. 26
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): music TBD
1718 Brewing Ocracoke (music at 7 pm): Brooke & Nick
Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Ocracoke Rockers
The Breeze (music at 9 pm): Zack Brock & Good Intentions
By Zander Abranowicz
This June, we climbed into our Toyota 4Runner and drove on deflated tires down Ramp 72 to the pristine beachfront that spans Ocracoke’s Atlantic coast.
Along the way, we stopped to let a diamondback terrapin plod leisurely across our path and watched a tern plunge into the marsh beside us.
Plowing ahead through white sand, we reached our seaside nest, and after setting up chairs and a cooler, commenced our most sacred vacation ritual: beach reading.
From murder mysteries to bodice rippers, everyone’s ideal vacation book is different. I always reach for site-specific literature.
I’ve read “Zorba the Greek” in Crete. “All the Pretty Horses” in Texas.
Coloring everything I encounter with context, the right read brings a sense of wonder to any destination. This summer, I packed what proved to be the perfect one for Ocracoke: “Under the Sea-Wind,” the first book by the great American naturalist Rachel Carson, known for her groundbreaking “Silent Spring.”
“Under the Sea-Wind” plunges readers into the natural history of the Atlantic coastline and keeps us hooked to the last word. We meet Rynchops the black skimmer, Scomber the Atlantic mackerel, and my favorite, Anguilla the American eel, as they fight to survive and reproduce. Carson’s decision to name individual animals creates an intimacy one might never feel seeing an anonymous school of menhaden or squadron of pelicans.
“Under the Sea-Wind” emerged from a landscape not far from where we sat reading, and I could feel it in the unmistakable Outer Banks atmosphere in which the book opens.
In 1938, Carson’s research for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service brought her to the (then) isolated fishing village of Beaufort.
Paddling creeks, picking through tidal zones, and mingling with local fishermen, she fell in love with the Carolina coast.
Beaufort also provided the perfect setting for the book she’d been working on since 1936. The project had started as a rejected introduction to a government brochure about fish and later came to the attention of a New York publisher, who encouraged Carson to write a book entirely from the perspective of sea creatures. When she arrived in Beaufort, she found their habitat.
That’s why, if you crack into “Under the Sea-Wind” anywhere on earth, you’ll feel the sea breeze drifting off the surf at Shackleford Banks, that “lovely stretch of wild ocean beach” Carson chose, along with Town Marsh, as the backdrop for her first book’s first chapters.
In 1985, a 2,315-acre nature reserve bearing her name was set aside in Beaufort to immortalize this connection.
Sitting on the beach, I read about Rynchops hunting for minnows, and looked up to find a black skimmer doing the very same thing. When Scomber escaped the jaws of a hundred-pound rock cod, I looked across the water and pictured the frenzy of life and death beneath the surface. By reading this book, I was learning to read my environment.
True to life, humans play an important part in “Under the Sea-Wind.” From pound netters and gill netters competing for shad, to seiners harvesting mullet from the shallows, Carson weaves early 20th-century maritime culture into her narrative.
Later that day, while cycling around Silver Lake Harbor past Ocracoke’s last remaining fish house, her words helped me imagine the hardy people who made a life here before tourists like me arrived on these shores. The thesis of Carson’s life and career was that a sense of wonder was essential to a sense of obligation to the natural world.
“Under the Sea-Wind” brought that sense of wonder to my (always too brief) time on Ocracoke this summer. I hope it does the same for you.]
An annual Ocracoke visitor, Zander Abranowicz is a writer and birder based in Richmond, Virginia.
Dare County Emergency Management Director Drew Pearson and Erik Heden, the National Weather Service’s local Warning Coordination Meteorologist, will present a Hurricane Preparedness Forum at 2 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 23, at the Dare County Emergency Operations Center, 370 Airport Road Manteo.
Speakers at the forum will share important information on preparedness actions as well as updates on weather service forecast products.
Topics will include important preparedness efforts and why it’s important to never focus only upon the category of a storm but instead to focus on the storm’s potential impacts.
At the end of the forum, time will be set aside for a community discussion during which attendees can ask questions and share their concerns.
The forum, which is free and open to the public, will be held both in persions Center and virtually.
Virtual attendees will have the opportunity to ask questions using the chat and/or audio features of the meeting software.
For the virtual option, internet access is required, and participants must register online by clicking here.
Limited in-person seating is available at the Dare County Emergency Operations Center. To reserve a seat to attend the event in person, call 252-475-5655 or email James Wooten at james.wooten@darenc.gov.
Seats will be assigned based on the date and time of the participant’s call or email.
For more information about the forum, please contact Pearson at 252-475-5655 or drew.pearson@darenc.gov.
Former Ocracoke Island homeowner Brigitte Eisfeld Cromwell, 88, died Aug. 1.
She was born August 15, 1934, in Leipzig, Germany, and was preceded in death by her husband, Peter Beale Cromwell and son Olaf Stüwe.
She is survived by sons Alf Cromwell (Laurie) and Patrick Cromwell (Stacia); eight grandchildren and four great-grandchildren.
A celebration of life service will be held at a later date at St. David’s Episcopal Church in Wayne, Pa.
Online condolences may be made at http://www.hayworth-miller.com.
The Ocracoke Civic & Business Association will host the Fall Ocracoke Island-Wide Yard Sale from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. on Saturday, Sept. 16.
The rain date is Sunday, Sept. 17.
No need to wait until spring to do a spring cleaning for these Ocracoke Island residents.
This is the perfect opportunity to allow other people to find their treasure and help participants lighten their load.
The Ocracoke Island-Wide Yard Sale is free to participate in and to attend.
Islanders who want to participate should email: ocba@ocracokeisland.net.
Detailed maps highlighting each participating yard sale location will be available several days prior to the sale at the Ocracoke Variety Store, the Post Office and online TBD.
Washington, N.C.–The Beaufort County Community College Small Business Center has unveiled the Seed & Sow Startup Contest, a new-business aid.
This is a small-business learning and planning process culminating in a “pitch contest” where qualifying entrepreneurs compete to win cash awards to help fund their small business startup idea.
Qualifying competitors would be required to complete all five free SBC Core Workshops, attend five (one-hour) counseling sessions with BCCC SBC Director Jack Dugan, complete a formal business plan, and register their business with the NC Secretary of State.
The contest will take place in April 2024 with coursework and counseling beginning in September to December.
Only open to Beaufort, Hyde, Tyrell, and Washington County entrepreneurs. Register online for more details.
Click here to register or learn more! For questions, call Jack Dugan, SBC director, at 252-940-6306.
Monday, Aug. 14
Ocracoke Oyster Company(music at 7 pm): Nick & Adam
Tuesday, Aug. 15
Bird walk meet at parking lot outside of the NPS campground, 8:30 am
Ocracoke Civic & Business Association meeting: Community Center, 6 pm
Ocracoke Oyster Company(music at 7 pm): Barefoot Wade
Wednesday, Aug. 16
Public input session on proposed amendment to the animal ordinance prohibiting dogs running at large, 4 pm. Community Center
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Team Trivia
Ocracoke Waterways Commission: 6:30 pm, Ocracoke Community Center Canceled
Deepwater Theater: Ocrafolk Opry, 8 pm
Thursday, Aug. 17
Ocracoke Preservation Society Porch Talk on Ocracoke communications, 1 pm
Community Center: Bingo. 6:30 pm. Doors open at 6.
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Brooke & Nick
Ocracoke Oyster Company: Ray Murray, 8 pm
The Breeze (music at 9 pm): Ocracoke Rockers
Friday, Aug. 18
Mini Bar at Ocracoke Coffee (6-8 pm): Kate McNally
1718 Brewing Ocracoke (music at 7 pm): Music TBD
Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Nick & Adam
The Breeze (music at 9 pm): Ocracoke Rockers
Saturday, Aug. 19
1718 Brewing Ocracoke (music at 7 pm): Allegra & Paige
Ocracoke Oyster Company (music at 7 pm): Ocracoke Rockers
The Breeze (all music at 9 pm): DJ Buckshot
Sunday, Aug. 20
The Breeze (music at 9 pm): Barefoot Wade
