Tropical Storm Earl Update-Temporary Weakening!

The above is recent images of Tropical Storm Earl. Tropical storm earl was raised to a 50 KT with 60 MPH winds at 5 AM with a pressure of 999 mbs. I was off by 5 mph on the winds but correct with the pressure. So the intermediate advisory worked out quite well and it was posted here first before the National Hurricane Center.

Since that time frame Earl has weakened slightly and now as of 2 Pm is at 55 MPH and a 1000 mb pressure. This weakening should only be temporary. The weakening occurred because the center was exposed and the convection was moving away from it but since that time it has tucked back underneath the convection.

Aside from that you can see looking at the images above that Earl is stretched out and quite broad. Earl is not in the greatest environment at the present time despite what some might lead you to believe.

So lets look at some of the latest images from 18 Z

The above is the 18 Z shear map and as you can see the shear is anywhere from 10-30 across this system. Majority of the system is in the 10-20 knot range. Of course there is nothing that would be considered detrimental to the system developing but enough shear in place to keep development rather slow for the time being.

The image above now is the shear tendency map and again as one can tell to the east of the system the shear is lowering but to the north the west and the south the shear has been increasing. At the present time Earl is not heading into favorable shear environment.

Divergence is favorable with the system while the best convergence really is lying over the southwestern part of the system. The center is really on the edge of the convergence zone.

Earl continues to move off to the west pretty much as Real Wx Services has been expecting and continues to put the Islands

At risk for tropical storm conditions. All of the above was pointed out and talked about here before the National Hurricane Center spoke about it. The difference clearly is that I rely more on the satellite and water vapor then the models themselves. Models are still playing catch up to this system.

So some slow strengthening is likely but the key word with this is slow.

The other thing that no one seems to be talking about is the speed that this system is moving. The fast forward motion of this storm is also another factor that is keeping this from taking off.

Earl should start to turn to the west north west within the next 24 hours.

All interests in the islands continue to tune into the latest on this developing system