Tropical Central / Cyclone Warning Center

The only area of concern today continues to be invest area 94-E located in the southeast Pacific, just off the coast of Central America. As you can see in the satellite picture (courtesy of the University of Wisconsin’s CIMSS site), the low pressure area is gradually becoming better organized. The red “I” indicates the initial position of the center of the low. There is some banding of the cloud cover and deep tropical convection is maintaining itself. A majority of the reliable computer models indicate that 94-E will move WNW to NW and approach the southeast coast of Mexico in a few days. As far as intensity goes, the SHIPS model indicates category one hurricane strength, assuming that the center does not interact with land. Other intensity models are more conservative, keeping the system a moderate tropical storm at its peak.

The main impact looks to be heavy rain fall for portions of Central America and eventually southeast Mexico. The disturbance is slow moving, so it has time to dump a lot of rain along its path. Interests in the region should be aware of this hazard.

In the Atlantic Basin, things are nice and quiet. It is possible that we may see a window of opportunity for tropical cyclone formation in about a week but the only evidence of that right now is the fact that the MJO phase would be more favorable. This alone does not lead to development- there are plenty of other factors that ultimately drive the genesis of tropical storms and hurricanes. We’ll see what happens as we move towards the latter half of the month. So far, I do not see any consistency in the long range model guidance to suggest development in any location. I’ll post more about 94-E tomorrow morning.