While denying the anger they felt discussing traveling across the Atlantic alone, as the tropical wave they studied had done, National Hurricane Center meteorologist bargained about naming Tropical Storm Earl. during the grieving, they skipped depression, and moved on to acceptance. Today, The National Hurricane Center issued a special statement and forecast around noon eastern time alerting the public to the new Tropical Storm.
They finally accepted the storm as one.
Forced, and very corny, tongue-in-cheek jokes aside, while the NHC never tagged it as a Tropical Depression, this isn’t terribly uncommon. The NHC was struggling to find a closed center of lower-level circulation. The convection – and, more importantly, wind speed – likely met the criteria for a tropical depression yesterday, but it didn’t have the centralized circulation, so it couldn’t be given a TD-xx insignia.
From the 8am NHC Statement:
... and a tropical storm will likely form later today. An Air Force plane is enroute to investigate the wave and determine if a closed circulation has formed. Regardless of tropical cyclone formation, the wave is already producing winds of 40 to 45 mph...
But now that there is an area of circulation, and the wind speeds are more than 40mph, it is given a name.
Current stats:
Center Location – 16.3 N, 80.2 W
Movement – W at 22mph
Max Winds – 45mph
Notice that Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect for the coast of Honduras, Belize, and the south coast of Quintana Roo in Mexico. There is also a Hurricane Watch in effect for those same areas – from roughly Punta Allen, Quintana Roo, Mexico south across the entire coast of Belize to Punta Gorda.
It looks like the coast of Guatemala isn’t included. But people near Livingston and Puerto Barrios in Izabel, Guatemala. should also be prepared for deteriorating weather conditions.
