Good morning. Hurricaneville continues to monitor things throughout the tropics, and now finds we’re dealing with a tropical storm in the far Eastern Atlantic. Last night, the site reported on how the strong tropical wave in the Eastern Atlantic had gotten organized enough to become the seventh tropical depression of the 2009 Atlantic Hurricane Season. Overnight, the system continued to strengthen and become better organized, and in the 5:00 AM EDT Advisory from the National Hurricane Center, TD #7 was reclassified as the sixth named storm of the season, Fred.

As of 5:00 AM EDT, Fred was centered about 285 miles Southwest of the Southernmost Cape Verde Islands. Maximum sustained winds were bumped up to 50 miles per hour according to analysis of the latest satellite imagery. Wind gusts are now in upwards of 55 knots, or 65 miles per hour while the minimum central pressure has decreased to 1000 millibars, or 29.53 inches of Hg (Mercury). Tropical storm force winds extend approximately 30 miles from the center of circulation. Right now, the storm is a compact one, but it is anticipated to get stronger within the next 36 hours.

The latest forecast discussion from the NHC indicates that Fred will become a minimal hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale over the next day and a half. Looking at the latest satellite imagery of the Tropical Atlantic courtesy of the Weather Channel, there is good banding with this system around the growing Central Dense Overcast as well as good outflow. In addition, upper level dynamics near the storm continue to be favorable for additional development.

Moving on to the forecast track, the storm appears to be one for the shipping lanes and the fish. The latest advisory has Fred currently moving westward at 15 miles per hour, and suggests that the storm will gradually turn to the West-Northwest, and then Northwest with a decrease in forward speed over the next couple of days. The discussion goes into more detail on why by stating that the narrow upper level ridge over the system is expected to weaken, and be replaced by a mid to upper level low over the next 48 hours or so. With the system turning more northward with time out in the Eastern Atlantic, it would be very unlikely that Fred will affect major land mass areas such as the Lesser Antilles, or the United States. Almost all of the models support this track with the exception of the CLP5.

Hurricaneville will continue to monitor the progress of Fred, and provide updates as they warrant. In addition, both the Tracking the Tropics and Hurricaneville Storm Report segments will be updated later today.