Tropical storm duo of Isaac and Joyce may deliver a one-two punch to the Maritimes

I'm going to go out on a limb here and say that — if they haven't already — the Maritime provinces really need to sit up and take notice of Tropical Storm Isaac and newly-named Tropical Storm Joyce, as their timing looks to put them hand-in-hand as they promenade up the East Coast next week.

Isaac should be upgraded to hurricane status just as it makes landfall in Haiti on Friday night. Haiti and Cuba will slow it down a bit and downgrade it back to a Tropical Storm, but it should be back up to hurricane strength by the time it passes to the west of Florida on Monday and Tuesday.

Just upgraded this afternoon, Tropical Storm Joyce is right behind Isaac, but rather than follow in his footsteps, Joyce is projected to head towards the East Coast before taking a hard-right to pass to the east of Bermuda by Tuesday morning.

By the time these two storms reach Canada, with Isaac on land and Joyce over the sea, they could could have a big impact on the Maritime provinces.

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Environment Canada long-range models are typically quite good at predicting tropical cyclone paths, but it's still too early to be sure exactly where these two storms are going to go, so take what follows here with a grain of salt. However, according to the latest models, after Tuesday Isaac will get stretched up the East Coast to drench everywhere from Alabama to Nova Scotia. Meanwhile, Joyce is likely to lag slightly behind Isaac and remain out to sea as it continues up the coast, and will probably add even more wind and rain to New England and the Maritime provinces.

It'll be interesting to see what actually happens with Isaac and Joyce, as hurricanes and tropical storms can take some interesting detours sometimes. Also, there's always a chance that one of these cyclones will end up eating the other one — which usually results in the hungry one getting stronger — so in any case, it's going to be a very wet week for the East Coast.

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