Good morning. Sorry for the delay in blog posts, but unfortunately I didn’t get a chance to get on my iPad at work yesterday, and afterwards I was too tired to do anything. Anyway, I’ve got some time this morning to put some stuff together.

We are now 8 for 8 with the number of tropical depressions that have become storms. What had been Tropical Depression Eight for the past two days, not only strengthened into the eighth named storm of the season, but it also came ashore. Tropical Storm Harvey emerged on Friday afternoon east of Isla Roatan in Honduras.

During the day on Friday, Harvey strengthened to have winds of 60 miles per hour, and a minimum central pressure of 994 millibars, or 29.35 inches of Hg. However, after going through the Bay Islands in Honduras, the pressure in the storm began to rise, and Harvey didn’t get any stronger after that prior to making landfall in Dangriga Town, Belize on Saturday afternoon.

Moving inland, the storm has gradually lost strength, and was downgraded to a tropical depression early Sunday morning, but it is still spinning as of the 4:00 AM CDT Advisory from the National Hurricane Center.

As of that latest advisory, Harvey was moving westward through Southeastern Mexico with maximum sustained winds of 35 miles per hour, and a minimum central pressure of 1005 millibars, or 29.68 inches of Hg. Even though Harvey is weakening, and will likely dissipate into a remnant low within the next 36 hours, it will still be a big rainmaker. With the elevated terrain of Mexico and Central America combined with the abundant tropical moisture, rainfall amounts between 3 to 6 inches are expected.

Isolated areas may receive up to 10 inches of rainfall. All of this rain could produce dangerous and life threatening flash floods and mudslides. With Harvey fading away, we have started the year with eight named storms and no hurricanes. I’m pretty sure that we haven’t had a season with this kind of start since the latest active cycle began back in 1995.