Tropical storm Don has formed.. but moving away from SWFL.
At 4PM CDT, the center of Tropical Storm Don was located near 22.7N, 87.0W, or about 120 miles north of Cozumel. Maximum sustain winds are near 40 mph and movement is WNW at 12 mph.
Hurricane hunter aircraft found a closed circulation inside the area of convection north of the Yucatan peninsula this afternoon with a few wind gusts as high as 45 kts east of the center. This qualifies the low as tropical storm status- Don has been born. Convection has been relatively impressive this afternoon and the outflow is decent. With generally light shear and ridging aloft, upper level conditions are favorable for modest intensification. Nevertheless, Don should remain a fairly weak system over the next couple of days and it is unlikely that he will ever reach hurricane status.
Don will continue to track WNW over the next 48 to 72 hours, guided by deep layer east-southeasterly flow beneath a subtropical ridge anchored over the southern US. Its course will ultimately take it to the TX coast late in the week with landfall likely sometime Friday night or Saturday. At this point the best estimate is for a track somewhere near CRP although the model spread suggests that landfall is possible anywhere between Brownsville and Port Arthur.
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Scott Zedeker
WINK TV Meteorologist
Don will continue to track WNW over the next 48 to 72 hours, guided by deep layer east-southeasterly flow beneath a subtropical ridge anchored over the southern US. Its course will ultimately take it to the TX coast late in the week with landfall likely sometime Friday night or Saturday. At this point the best estimate is for a track somewhere near CRP although the model spread suggests that landfall is possible anywhere between Brownsville and Port Arthur.
--
Scott Zedeker
WINK TV Meteorologist
