08.23.10

Hurricane Danielle and Soon-To-Be Earl?

Posted in Tropical Weather, Weather News at 6:14 pm by Rebekah

Danielle was upgraded to hurricane status this evening, with peak sustained winds of 75 mph (satellite image from CIMSS, taken at 2145 UTC, or 5:45 pm EDT).

The National Hurricane Center is forecasting that Danielle will reach Category 3 status (111 to 130 mph), peaking around 115 mph, on Wednesday evening.

Here’s a model intensity forecast again from Weather Undergound:

Danielle remains no threat to land; she should start recurving back north and eventually east by the time she gets east of Bermuda (NHC forecast track below).

Meanwhile, back where Danielle first formed, just south of the Cape Verde Islands, another disturbance is starting to organize. This area of low pressure is also in a favorable area for development, and the NHC believes there is a 40% chance of this system becoming a tropical cyclone within the next 48 hours.

Models show that this disturbance could become a tropical storm in the next few days, if it can hold together that long.

The next name on the Atlantic storms list is Earl.

In the eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Frank is struggling with wind shear just southwest of Mexico, but is expected to become a weak hurricane after a couple days, once he gets into an area of weaker shear. Frank is not a threat to Mexico, but is forecast to move parallel up the coast towards the northwest.

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