The HPC now puts some rather hefty rainfall totals across portions of Alabama into the weekend and next week.  Currently….the NHC continues to hold at Tropical Depression status.  There continues to be a high likelihood that Lee will be born sometime in the next 12 hours.  We will update more as information becomes available…

Arlene is gaining some organization this afternoon and Air Force Hurricane Hunters are investigating the system at this time.  Currently, maximum sustained winds of 50 mph and a minimum central pressure of 1000mb have been observed.  Given the current organization and expected ramp up in intensification….Arlene could reach hurricane status before making landfall on the Mexican coast some time tomorrow.  

Tropical Storm Arlene has formed and looks to be headed toward Mexico.  Maximum sustained winds are currently at 40 mph and is moving toward the WNW at 7mph.  Lowest central pressure has been found at 1003mb and is now closed.  The biggest hinderance along the Gulf Coast from this will be the wave/swell height.  Monitor the blog and our twitter @brettadair for the latest updates on the system.

Advisories on Tropical Storm Paula will be soon initiated by the NHC.  Air Force RECON is finding stronger winds by the minute from the flight.  This is a rapidly developing storm system and could cause some problems down the road.  We will wait on the models to initialize later and go from there in terms of where this thing may head.

The tropics are quite active this evening with the formation of Karl….as well as major Hurricane Igor and Hurricane Julia roaming the Atlantic basin.  Things continue to look active on the computer models over the next couple of weeks.  However, there are no major threats to US soil from any of these systems.   However, we will turn our attention to the storm that is closest to us in the Caribbean.

Karl looks pretty decent this evening on IR satellite imagery.  A small area of intense convection has formed near the low level center and is producing some vigorous tropical storm force winds in a small area.  Karl doesn’t have much time though before he makes his way across the Yucatan.

Early 00z output this evening is in a pretty tight cluster into the Bay of Campeche by the end of the week with a small spread after that point.  It still looks like the system will stay well to the south of the US border.  This is something we will watch, but that’s the trend for now.  We will watch things and update if it looks like things will do anything different.  This is giving us some great down time to work on the chase vehicle for the fall tornado season here in the south and any late season hurricane intercept attempts. 

The latest from the NHC was very interesting on 97L….

SHOWERS AND THUNDERSTORMS ASSOCIATED WITH A LOW PRESSURE SYSTEM
LOCATED ABOUT 900 MILES EAST OF THE LESSER ANTILLES HAVE CHANGED
LITTLE IN ORGANIZATION DURING THE DAY.  HOWEVER...AIRCRAFT DATA
FROM A RESEARCH MISSION BEING CONDUCTED BY THE NATIONAL CENTER FOR
ATMOSPHERIC RESEARCH...AS WELL AS SATELLITE DATA...SUGGEST THAT
THIS SYSTEM IS ALREADY PRODUCING TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS IN A
SMALL AREA NORTH OF THE CENTER.  ONLY A SMALL INCREASE IN
ORGANIZATION OF THE SHOWER AND THUNDERSTORM ACTIVITY WOULD RESULT
IN THE FORMATION OF A TROPICAL STORM...AND ADVISORIES COULD BE
INITIATED LATER THIS AFTERNOON OR TONIGHT.  THERE IS A HIGH
CHANCE...90 PERCENT...OF THIS SYSTEM BECOMING A TROPICAL CYCLONE
DURING THE NEXT 48 HOURS AS IT MOVES GENERALLY WESTWARD AT ABOUT 20
MPH.

This evening Tropical Storm Earl continues to get better organized east of the British and US Virgin Islands with maximum sustained winds of 60 mph once again.  The system has had a hard time becoming well organized due to its very fast motion over the last couple of days. 

The microwave imagery once again this evening shows that Earl is not very symmertrical in terms of a well defined inner core.  Over the next day or so he is expected to slow down a bit and be less influenced by Danielle’s outflow….therefore we expect him to become a major hurricane over the next 2 days.  Track is still very tricky at this point, but anyone along the east coast of Florida to the Carolinas should keep a close watch on the track and intensity forecasts of Earl.