Tropical Storm Paula: October 14, Update A

A short update as it's late... after skirting the northern Cuban coast for most of the day, Paula is over land now, at 22.8N, 82.8W, and is moving east at 9mph. She's a little thing and a bit messy so I can't quite determine the center and will go with the official lat/long. The forecast track has shifted and continues to take her in an ENE/E direction for a greater distance than it did yesterday. I agree with this more than I did with the southward turn over Cuba track that was depicted yesterday. It looks like she will re-emerge over water as a Tropical Depression and eventually dissipate. The downgrading to a Tropical Depression seems reasonable because she is over land and wind shear continues to increase, although she does have a lot of convection for something that is under those conditions. It's because she is interacting with the warm waters of the Straits of Florida - part of me is wondering if the center is still over water (barely), but I'll still go with the NHC location because I can't see the center and they have been sending planes into the system. The wind shear is responsible for almost all the convection being to her northeast, over southern Florida and the Bahamas.
 
Winds are 60mph and central pressure is 1002mb, so she's still a mid-sized TS (range:39-73mph). Vorticity is still good in the lowest half of the troposphere, and the lower level convergence and upper level divergence (remember those from a couple of updates ago?) is strong for such a little thing. We'll see how much this changes as she crosses Cuba.
 
That's all for today... time for a nap. :-)
Ciao (again ;-) ),
J.
 
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Twitter @JyovianStorm

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DISCLAIMER:
These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I was there and was going to "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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