Weather, Storms & Hurricane Blog

Early Evening Update: New Tropical Depression 13

The latest recon flight into the tropical disturbance in the southwest Gulf of Mexico, shows that Tropical Depression 13 has formed. If this system continues to develop and become a Tropical Storm, he would be named Lorenzo. As for Tropical Storm Karen, she remains a weak storm and slow to organize. More on both systems in the morning.

Tropical Storm Karen Satellite Image & Model Tracks

Tropical Storm Karen Now Active In Central Atlantic

Early this morning the newly formed Tropical Depression 12 from last night, was upgraded to Tropical Storm status at 5am and Named Karen. Tropical Storm Karen is now organizing over the central Atlantic and heading west-northwest near 16mph. Karen is expected to strengthen slowly and peak just below hurricane strength as stronger wind shear ahead of her helps keep her from organizing too much. Of course, this is all up in the air on intensity as Karen could still become a minimum category 1 hurricane if the shear is late on disrupting her circulation.

Karen One For The Fishes

As of this mornings model guidance and the official forecast from the National Hurricane Center, Tropical Storm Karen to remain a open ocean storm. She will continue westward over the next few days before turning northward ahead of a series of troughs. I enjoy storms like these too, as I can just sit back and track them through satellite imagery and they end up bothering no one. All good for your hurricane satellite interpretation skills and to keep your weather geek on.

Invest 94L / Invest 97L Struggling

The other two area’s of interests this morning are still struggling with wind shear. First in the Gulf of Mexico, we thought maybe yesterday we had a decent shot at a Tropical Depression forming, but the shear cranked back up over the system tilting the system and shearing the mid-level circulation off to the north, while the low-level circulation that developed at the surface slowly drifted west. Convection this thunderstorms look to have increase a tad with the system, but it still remains disorganized.

The Southern Windward Island system (97L) is look very poor this morning as wind shear has once again developed over the area shearing the convection. Development is looking less likely for the time being. I will continue to monitor all of these systems today and update this afternoon on the latest.

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