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Category 6 has moved! See the latest from Dr. Jeff Masters and Bob Henson here.Tropical Storm Blanca Hits Baja a Month Earlier Than Their Previous Earliest Landfall
Tropical Storm Blanca made landfall on the west side of Mexico's Baja Peninsula near 8 am EDT Monday June 8, 2015, with top winds near 45 mph. Blanca's landfall comes a month earlier than the previous earliest landfall on record for Baja, a strike by Tropical Storm Calvin on July 8, 1993. Calvin made landfall south of La Paz with sustained winds of 45 mph. Satellite loops show that Blanca's heavy thunderstorms are pushing northwards over the Baja Peninsula and into Mainland Mexico, and rainfall amounts of 3 - 5 inches can be expected in these areas through Monday. Moisture from Blanca will flow into Southern California, Arizona, and New Mexico beginning on Tuesday, bringing localized rains of 1 - 2 inches. Blanca brought top sustained winds of 34 mph to Los Cabos Airport on the southern tip of the Baja Peninsula Sunday night.
Figure 1. Tropical Storm Blanca as seen by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite at 2:30 pm EDT Sunday June 7, 2015. At the time, Blanca was weakening from a Catgeory 1 hurricane with 90 mph winds to a tropical storm with 70 mph winds. Image credit: NASA.
Figure 2. Hurricane Blanca sat in place for three days, intensifying from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds. Blanca's strong winds were able to stir up cool waters from the depths that cooled the oceans surface temperature a remarkable 9°C (16°F)--from 30°C (86°F) to 21°C (70°F.) This is one of the most intense cold wakes left by a hurricane that I've seen. Image credit: NOAA/AOML.
New Northeast Pacific disturbance 94E may develop near Mexican coast
An area of low pressure (Invest 94E) has formed in the Pacific a few hundred miles south of Mexico's Gulf of Tehauntepec, and has the potential to develop into a tropical depression. Wind shear is a low 5 - 10 knots and SSTs are a very warm 30°C (86°F), but satellite loops show 94E does not yet have much organization of its heavy thunderstorms. The 00Z Monday run of the European model and 06Z run of the GFS model predicted that 94E would develop into a tropical depression by Thursday and begin bringing heavy rains to the southeast coast of Mexico that day. A motion west-northwest parallel and just offshore was predicted, which would make 94E a dangerous heavy rain threat for the coast. In their 8 am EDT Monday tropical weather outlook, NHC gave 2-day and 5-day odds of development of 30% and 80%, respectively. It is possible that moisture from this disturbance could flow northwards into the southwest Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche early next week, boosting the chances of a tropical disturbance capable of forming into a tropical depression there.
To follow this year's action in the tropics, I recommend the Twitter feed of NHC hurricane specialist Eric Blake.
Jeff Masters
Figure 1. Tropical Storm Blanca as seen by the MODIS instrument on NASA's Terra satellite at 2:30 pm EDT Sunday June 7, 2015. At the time, Blanca was weakening from a Catgeory 1 hurricane with 90 mph winds to a tropical storm with 70 mph winds. Image credit: NASA.
Figure 2. Hurricane Blanca sat in place for three days, intensifying from a tropical storm to a Category 4 hurricane with 140 mph winds. Blanca's strong winds were able to stir up cool waters from the depths that cooled the oceans surface temperature a remarkable 9°C (16°F)--from 30°C (86°F) to 21°C (70°F.) This is one of the most intense cold wakes left by a hurricane that I've seen. Image credit: NOAA/AOML.
New Northeast Pacific disturbance 94E may develop near Mexican coast
An area of low pressure (Invest 94E) has formed in the Pacific a few hundred miles south of Mexico's Gulf of Tehauntepec, and has the potential to develop into a tropical depression. Wind shear is a low 5 - 10 knots and SSTs are a very warm 30°C (86°F), but satellite loops show 94E does not yet have much organization of its heavy thunderstorms. The 00Z Monday run of the European model and 06Z run of the GFS model predicted that 94E would develop into a tropical depression by Thursday and begin bringing heavy rains to the southeast coast of Mexico that day. A motion west-northwest parallel and just offshore was predicted, which would make 94E a dangerous heavy rain threat for the coast. In their 8 am EDT Monday tropical weather outlook, NHC gave 2-day and 5-day odds of development of 30% and 80%, respectively. It is possible that moisture from this disturbance could flow northwards into the southwest Gulf of Mexico's Bay of Campeche early next week, boosting the chances of a tropical disturbance capable of forming into a tropical depression there.
To follow this year's action in the tropics, I recommend the Twitter feed of NHC hurricane specialist Eric Blake.
Jeff Masters
The views of the author are his/her own and do not necessarily represent the position of The Weather Company or its parent, IBM.