A tight center of circulation consolidated in Tropical Depression Three-E and it intensified on Thursday.\u00a0 It is now designated as Tropical Storm Carlos.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Carlos was located at latitude 14.5\u00b0N and longitude 100.4\u00b0W which put it about 170 miles (270 km) south of Acapulco, Mexico and about 235 miles (380 km) south-southeast of Zihuatanejo.\u00a0 Carlos was moving toward the north-northwest at 2 m.p.h. (4 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h) and there were gusts to 70 m.p.h. (115 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 997 mb.\u00a0 The government of Mexico has issued a Tropical Storm Watch for the portion of the coast from Acapulco to Zihuatanejo.<\/p>\n
Although a tight circulation developed at the center of Carlos, it is still not fully organized.\u00a0 Thunderstorms are developing mainly to the south of the core of the circulation.\u00a0 Some spiral bands are beginning to form in the outer part of Carlos.\u00a0 However, there are not as many thunderstorms in the northern half of the circulation which may be an indication that some drier air from Mexico could be getting pulled into the circulation.\u00a0\u00a0 Carlos is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C and there is sufficient energy in the upper ocean to support intensification.\u00a0 An upper level ridge over Mexico is generating northeasterly winds over the top of Carlos and the vertical wind shear is inhibiting the development of the tropical storm.\u00a0 An upper level trough moving southward over the Gulf of Mexico could weaken the ridge for a day or two.\u00a0 That could reduce the wind shear and allow Carlos to intensify into a hurricane.<\/p>\n
As the upper level trough weakens the ridge, the steering currents will remain weak and Carlos could move slowly toward the coast of Mexico.\u00a0 The ridge is forecast to strengthen over the weekend and if that happens it will steer Carlos toward the northwest.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, Carlos will approach and then move parallel to the coast of Mexico.\u00a0 Most of the guidance from numerical models keeps Carlos off the coast during the next few days, but it could get close enough to bring some wind to the coast.\u00a0 That is the reason why the government of Mexico issued a Tropical Storm Watch for a portion of the coast.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
A tight center of circulation consolidated in Tropical Depression Three-E and it intensified on Thursday.\u00a0 It is now designated as Tropical Storm Carlos.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Thursday the center of Tropical Storm Carlos was located at latitude 14.5\u00b0N and longitude 100.4\u00b0W which put it about 170 miles (270 km) south of Acapulco, Mexico […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,2],"tags":[39,24],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=968"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":969,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/968\/revisions\/969"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=968"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=968"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=968"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}