On June 25, a frontal boundary oriented east to west over the northern United States began to push southward. Around June 27, a low pressure center formed along the front over North Carolina. Over the next day, the low drifted southeastward over South Carolina and emerged off of the coast early on June 28. Immediately, convection increased in association with the system.
In a region of weak steering currents, the low drifted slowly to the south, bringing rain showers to the northern Bahamas and eastern Florida by June 29. However, wind shear out of the north also increased that day, inhibiting the development of shower activity near the low's center. Despite this lack of convection, the low itself deepened significantly by June 30. Late in the day, upper-level winds once again became more favorable as wind shear dropped to near 10 kt. At this time, reconnaissance aircraft indicated that the system was just below the threshold of becoming a tropical cyclone. By just before midnight, organization had increased sufficiently to classify the system as Tropical Depression One, the first tropical cyclone of the 2014 Altantic Hurricane Season.
Tropical Depression One slowed and became nearly stationary off of the central Florida coast during the morning of July 1. Meanwhile, through the center of circulation remained on the northern edge of thunderstorm activity, banding and convective organization improved and the cyclone strengthened into Tropical Storm Arthur. Though the tropical storm reamined quite close to the U.S. East Coast, most of the deep convection was confined to the southern and eastern parts of the circulation, sparing land areas of the heaviest rain. Banding slowly improved throughout the day, indicating gradual strengthening By that evening, Arthur had begun a definite northward motion ahead of a trough moving into the southeastern United States. Central deep convection remained inconsistent into the morning of July 2, but the cyclone deepened and showed hints of an eye, and Arthur had soon intensified into a strong tropical storm.
Arthur persisted in its northerly motion throughout the day and most of the night, and meanwhile continued to strengthen. An eye feature made a brief appearance on visible satellite imagery during the afternoon of July 2, and the storm continued to gain in organization through the morning of July 3, even despite some ingestion of dry air from the north. By this time, rain bands had begun to sweep over the coasts of the Carolinas. Later in the morning, Arthur finally began to take its long anticipated eastward turn ahead of a front approaching the U.S. east coast and began to accelerate north-northeast.
That afternoon, Arthur developed a well-defined eye apparent on both visible and infrared imagery, indicating that another phase of strengthening was beginning. By the evening, the cyclone was upgraded to a category 2 hurricane. At 11:15 pm EDT on July 3, Hurricane Arthur made landfall near Cape Lookout, North Carolina, reaching its peak intensity of 100 mph winds and a minimum pressure of 973 mb, already stronger than any cyclone of the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season. Around 5:00 am on July 4, the center of circulation passed over the northern Outer Banks and emerged into the Atlantic. Meanwhile, the system's outer bands affected the coastal areas of Virginia, Maryland, Delaware, and New Jersey.
Increasing wind shear and colder waters began to weaken Arthur that morning, even as its windfield expanded, indicating that the extratropical transition had begun. Late on July 4, Arthur made its closest approach to Cape Cod as a minimal category 1 hurricane, bringing heavy rainfall and some tropical storm force winds to the region. By this time, Arthur was accelerating rapidly to the northeast and losing tropical characteristics. Early on June 5, the Arthur made landfall in southern Nova Scotia as the remaining deep convection became separated from the low-level center. The cyclone became post-tropical shortly afterward. The remnants of Arthur continued north and northeast over Newfoundland and into the North Atlantic near Greenland.
Hurricane Arthur was the first hurricane to make landfall in the United States since 2012.
Arthur took a rather unexpected shift to the west before landfall, bringing it inland over the Outer Banks of North Carolina.
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