Tropical Storm Barry: June 19, Update A

I did not fall asleep on the job thank you very much! ;-)

I’ve been following this little blob since its primary school days in the Caribbean (it wasn’t much to write about back then). I  had intended to send a note out yesterday, but <ahem> someone <ahem> broke the Internet. Luckily for all of you, I managed to fix it with a roll of duct tape and a feather duster. The progress of humanity will live to fight another day. Or something.

Tropical Storm Barry crossed the Yucatan peninsula as a blob yesterday and is in the Bay of Campeche. It didn’t have too much in the way of circulation as it crossed, but what it did have remained intact in the lowest levels of the troposphere (<Jargon Alert!> see http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/2013/06/gulf-of-mexico-blobette-june-4-update-a.html for clarification). It also lost a lot of convection as it crossed land, but now it is over the lovely warm waters of the Gulf, the convective activity (technical term for rain, thunder and ‘stuff like that’ (technical term for ‘stuff like that’ ;-))) has increased. You can see the gradual increase in convection over the last 2.5 hours in these infrared satellite images.

Sea surface temperatures are 29-30 deg C (a storm needs temperatures of 26.5 deg C or higher to be sustained) and wind shear is quite weak. They sent a plane into the system to investigate but I wasn’t at all surprised that they named this one as Tropical Storm Barry earlier this afternoon. I agree!! J

He is somewhere around 21N, 95W, heading WNW towards Mexico. He is very weak – barely a Tropical Storm – with winds of 40mph (TS range: 39-73mph), central pressure 1005mb and should make landfall tomorrow morning.

And really, that’s about all for now. Time for a lovely cuppa tea.

Ciao!
J.

Blogs archived at http://jyotikastorms.blogspot.com/
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 "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.
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