Tropical Storm Don Thoughts

As the above satellite image shows DON we can see that DON had gone thru some issues as of late yesterday afternoon. We think this was contributed to being so close to land. In other words interaction with land contributed to what we seen yesterday afternoon and evening. Overnight DON started to take on a slightly better appearance. However, as you can see he is very small in size..Tropical cyclones this size usually do one of two things:

1. They can ramp up very quickly and become microcanes

2. They can just go poof.

Original thinking was that this had potential to become the first hurricane of the Atlantic Season. We think that this potential is still possible but expectations for this occurring have become lower then what they originally were.

If you go back to the first discussion we mentioned about the TCHP and how you generally want the TCHP to be at 80 or above. While there is no denying the warm water temperatures of the GOM..the TCHP is a different case..

If you can compare the TCHP image to the above satellite image you can see that DON for the moment is travelling to the south of the greatest TCHP. However, off to his NW is warmer TCHP. If DON can continue on a NW movement he would be travelling over the greater area of TCHP and this could allow DON to restrengthen.

Lets look at the rest of the surroundings to see if there is anything that could hinder further strengthening from occurring.

Shear is not an issue at this present time because it is only in 5-10 knots of shear. This is certainly not detrimental to development.

You can see some dry air off the Tx coast and the Mx coast and it is possible that DON could be ingesting some of this dry air which is holding back intensification..however..we have seen systems develop with more dry air then what is shown above.

Convergence and divergence is good across the COC of DON.

Here is another possible problem as you can see that the greatest area of vorticity is south of where the center is. There is no doubt that some weakening has occurred since the inception as the pressure went from 1001 MBS to 1005 mbs as of current update.

So as you can see there are some issues that potentially could be holding DON back from intensifying.

Movement should continue to maintain a NW or WNW track and this is due to the ridge that is in place and will persist at least for the next 48 hrs.

Anyone from the Southern TX coast to the TX/MX border needs to keep an eye on this system. Tropical cyclones are entities that seem to have a mind of their own and small compact ones are capable of rapidly intensifying or going “poof”..

Next update will be issued this evening on Tropical Storm Don!