Storm Slightly Strengthens, But Still Barely A Storm

With Nate appearing more and more likely to go into Mexico, the focus shifts now to Tropical Storm Maria, which is closing in on the Lesser Antilles this Friday afternoon.  While the storm has strengthened a little and has deeper convection, it is still very disorganized, and hanging on to tropical storm status.

Maria’s current forecast track is looking much like that of Hurricane Irene.  It is much further to south and west than that of Katia’s, but still a bit more to the east than Irene at this point.  However, that could all change as we progress into this weekend and next week.  Right now, Maria is located some 135 miles to the Northeast of Barbados, or 275 miles to the East-Southeast of Guadeloupe.

The storm has slowed down significantly over the past 24 hours.  At one point, Maria was moving near 22 miles per hour.  Now it is moving off to the West-Northwest at just 14 miles per hour.  The rapid forward motion of the storm may have helped inhibit its development.  However, Maria will still have to contend with plenty of westerly and southwesterly shear from a trough to the north of it.

As of the 2:00 PM EDT Advisory from the National Hurricane Center, Maria had maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour, which is up slightly from this time yesterday.  Wind gusts are in excess of 55 miles per hour.  Minimum central pressure is 1004 millibars, or 29.65 inches of Hg.  Maria is a much larger system than Nate with tropical storm force winds extending some 175 miles from the center.

A Tropical Storm Warning is currently in effect for Guadeloupe, St. Martin, Saba, St. Eustatius, Antigua, Anguilla, Barbuda, Montserrat, Nevis, St. Kitts, British Virgin Islands, Dominica, St. Barthelemy, St. Maarten, Martinique, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Vieques, and Culebra.  All interests in Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the Southeastern Bahamas should monitor the progress of this storm.

According to the most recent forecast discussion, the convection associated with Maria has become deeper.  However, the storm remains very disorganized.  To make matters worse, Maria still has to deal with very unfavorable upper level winds for much of the forecast period.   It is not until four or five days out, where you see this system strengthening to the point of becoming a hurricane.  By the end of the forecast period, the path of Maria has it to the east of the Central Bahamas on Tuesday, and to the East-Northeast of the Northern Bahamas on Wednesday.