Air Force Reserve Hurricane Hunter Aircraft spent the overnight hours flying in TD #1 and early this morning found winds had increased to 40mph. With the 5am advisory the storm was upgraded to Tropical Storm Alex. Satellite imagery continues to show strong thunderstorms persisting and concentrating around the center. The bright red and magenta colors in the enhanced satellite indicate the coldest cloud tops which is where the strongest thunderstorms are located.
Tropical Storm Alex will continue to move towards the WNW and is expected to bring up to 8 inches of rain over Belize and the Yucatan thru Sunday. Alex will weaken while over land but should quickly strengthen once it moves into the Gulf of Mexico. Then the computer models begin to diverge. Some still move Alex further northward in response to a deepening trough to its north.
The WRF model shows a band of stronger wind shear to the north of Alex and continues to show this stronger shear lifting north out of the Gulf early next week. This should continue to provide a favorable environment for Alex. It still appears that Alex will mostly likely remain a tropical storm or a minimal hurricane as it makes landfall somewhere along the western Gulf coast.
Elsewhere in the Atlantic we are watching Invest 94L which is interacting with a upper level trough and development is not expected over the next 48 hours. A tropical wave has moved off the coast of Africa but has quickly weakened as it continues to move west.
The tropical WRF model shows Alex moving over the western Gulf of Mexico on Monday afternoon and Invest 94L moving northward where interests in Bermuda will monitor its progress. Otherwise the Atlantic remains quiet.
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