Carlos weakened to a tropical storm as it moved west of Acapulco, Mexico on Sunday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday the center of Tropical Storm Carlos was located at latitude 16.7\u00b0N and longitude 101.3\u00b0W which put it about 95 miles (150 km) west of Acapulco and about 110 miles (175 km) southeast of Lazaro Cardenas.\u00a0 Carlos was moving toward the northwest at 6 m.p.h. (9 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 70 m.p.h. (110 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 85 m.p.h. (135 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 998 mb.\u00a0 Carlos is a small tropical cyclone.\u00a0 The tropical storm force winds only extend out about 50 miles (80 km) from the center and it has a Hurricane Size Index (HSI) of 1.7.\u00a0 The government of Mexico has issued a Hurricane Warning for the portion of the coast that extends from Punta San Telmo to Tecpan de Galeana.\u00a0 A Hurricane Watch has been issued for the portion of the coast from Playa Perula to Punta San Telmo.<\/p>\n
Carlos was nearly stationary for several days and its winds mixed cooler water to the surface.\u00a0 In addition the circulation pulled in drier air from Mexico as it got closer to the coast.\u00a0 The combined effects of cooler water and drier resulted in less energy to drive the circulation and Carlos weakened to a tropical storm on Sunday.\u00a0 Late in the day it started to move toward the northwest and get away from the cooler water.\u00a0 Carlos is moving over an area where the Sea Surface Temperature (SST) is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 Recent satellite images indicate that stronger thunderstorms are forming near the center of circulation.\u00a0 The flow around Carlos is still pulling in drier air from Mexico and there are fewer thunderstorms in the northern half of the tropical storm.\u00a0 The small size of Carlos means that it can strengthen or weaken more quickly than a larger storm because there is less mass to accelerate.\u00a0 The upper level winds over Carlos have lessened and there is not as much vertical wind shear.\u00a0 If Carlos remains over water, it is likely to intensify back to a hurricane on Monday.<\/p>\n
An upper level ridge over Mexico is moving slowly toward the east and it is starting to steer Carlos toward the northwest.\u00a0 The ridge is expected to continue to steer the tropical storm toward the northwest or west-northwest on Monday.\u00a0 As Carlos approaches the western end of the ridge is expected to turn more toward the west-northwest.\u00a0 There is some uncertainty about where the turn will occur.\u00a0 Guidance from some models have Carlos turning farther east and making a landfall between Manzanillo and Cabo Corientes, while some other models have the tropical storm moving farther west before turning.\u00a0 Either scenario is plausible and hence, the high degree of uncertainty about the future track of Carlos.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Carlos weakened to a tropical storm as it moved west of Acapulco, Mexico on Sunday.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Sunday the center of Tropical Storm Carlos was located at latitude 16.7\u00b0N and longitude 101.3\u00b0W which put it about 95 miles (150 km) west of Acapulco and about 110 miles (175 km) southeast of Lazaro […]<\/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\/992"}],"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=992"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":993,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/992\/revisions\/993"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=992"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=992"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=992"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}