Monday, June 28, 2010

Alex Expected to Strengthen, Forecast Path Still Uncertain

Tropical Storm Alex is currently sitting in the southwest Gulf, nearly stationary.

The satellite image shows bright magenta colors starting to fill in around the center of the low. Anytime you see those brightly enhanced colors, that means showers and storms are beginning to develop and that the storm is showing signs of strengthening.

Alex is expected to develop into a hurricane on Tuesday afternoon as it moves over some very deep, warm waters in the Gulf.

The big question remains, where will Alex go from here? The answer is we don't know for sure as there remains a lot of uncertainty as to what the weak steering currents will do.

The latest forecast track from the National Hurricane Center has the storm making landfall anywhere from as far south asTampico, Mexico, to as far north as the lower Texas coast.

It should be noted that earlier today, the forecast track and corresponding computer models wanted to take Alex further north.

However, the latest model runs and forecast track have reverted back to their initial thinking; that is, more of a northern Mexico, extreme South Texas landfall by late Wednesday evening.

The one thing to note is that these forecast tracks will probably shift a few more times, before it really settles in on a certain location.

We will have to watch it closely as the farther north it goes, the stronger the storm will become, and the more impacts we will feel from it.

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