While Tropical Storm Alex has been slowly intensifying..it still has a rather ragged appearance. This could be attributed to it has been sustaining 10-20 knots of shear..it since the beginning has had a rather large, broad circulation center..the shear size of the storm and the fact that the anti cyclone is displaced to the west. Also in the vicinity of Alex off to the Northeast is an ULL that was forecasted to lift out.
If one has been following my postings on the accuweather forum ..i mentioned that while this was back on land that it would take some time for this system to really organize and get its act together. As one can tell, it has been intensifying but at a rather slow rate. Ocean heat content that its been over is on the low side & also the speed of the storm can be attributed to this not intensifying quicker. Alex had basically stalled for some time yesterday and that causes upwelling of cooler waters from underneath.
Alex has been the type of storm that seems to pulse around the diurnal max and then that convective pulse tends to weaken afterwards & then it basically repeats that process!
A mid level ridge is strengthening to the north of Alex and this has caused Alex to take a turn back towards the NW and as this ridge strengthens this should cause Alex to turn even more towards the WNW.
As far as strength of the system. Majority of your models do not show much more intensification. NHC is expecting intensification over the next 48 hrs. At this point and time i think there is about a 70 % chance that Alex will become a Category 1 hurricane before landfall. That leaves a 30 % chance of Alex staying a TS. I do not think that Alex will become a Cat 2 or a Major hurricane because one thing that has been consistent is that Alex has not been able to sustain any convection on the western side. At the time of this forecast that is still the case.
Here is what I am thinking approximately as far as landfall for Alex.
Once again..at landfall the thinking is that there is a 70% chance that Alex will become a Cat 1 hurricane. The current thinking is that landfall will be to the south of the US..However…anyone in S Texas should still be concerned because of storm surge and the extent of the tropical storm winds. Stay tuned for further updates!
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