Although campaign season may be ending in the US in a couple of days the Atlantic hurricane season has at least one more month to go (statistically speaking). And so, we welcome into the fold the first Tropical Storm Eta.
For those who are comparing this to historical records - 2005 ended with Zeta (which ran from Dec 30, 2005 - Jan 6, 2006 as per the official archives in the NHC), so there were 27 named storms, however three additional blobs were numbered (e.g. TD 10). In total there were 30 named and numbered systems in 2005. This year, we have had one number so in total we are at 29 named and numbered systems.
Tropical Storm Eta is in the Caribbean at 14.9N, 80W, heading W at 13mph and looks like the forecast is that it will make landfall in Nicaragua on Tuesday...
Normally I would go with the NHC on this track as it is less than 2 days out, however keep an eye on the cone. There is a chance that it will stay on the northern edge of that cone, and so the track may shift northward enough for it to miss Nicaragua and head directly to Honduras.
Winds are 70mph, central pressure is 989mb, which makes it a strong Tropical Storm (TS range: 39-73mph) and almost a cat 1 hurricane. I think this one is already a hurricane - possibly with winds in the 90mph-95mph range which makes it closer to a cat 2 storm (cat 2 range: 96-110mph). The vorticity is well developed throughout the troposphere, and as you can see from the satellite imagery, it has a lot of convection with a little eye developing:
It's not surprising that it has a lot of convection - the water is very warm here, with the upper 125-150m of the ocean being warmer than 26 deg C:
There is also very little wind shear, which means that conditions are set for it to continue to intensify and I can see why the NHC think it will be a major hurricane before landfall (major being a cat 3 or higher).
Storm like this in this part of the world bring landslides - it will be the water that causes the most damage in this case so be prepared for that.
And in other tropical cyclone news, the Philippines saw Super Typhoon Goni (known locally as Rolly) making landfall yesterday with wind speeds of ~195 mph - this is the strongest known storm to make landfall, surpassing Super Typhoon Haiyan which also made landfall in the Philippines in 2013 with winds of around 190mph!
More tomorrow!
Ciao for now,
J.
Twitter: jyovianstorm
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 local 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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