Mixed signals on Claudette

[Derek Ortt]

Claudette has been sending mixed signals this afternoon. First, I;'d liked to say that when recon found the circulation this morning, I was actually quite surprised as it appeared to be a wave based upon very early IR-2 and visible imagery. Since then, the center has remained, though the outflow boundary is a major fly in the ointment. However, the upper winds do appear to be slightly more favorable for development than they were 12 hours ago. We could see some slight intensification before landfall in the Yucatan.

Long term, this looks like a landfall near the Texas/Mexico border, though the timing is in great question as the global models slow this dramatically and the tropical numerical models nearly stop the system. Thus, this is likely to be a slow mover, though if it survives the environment, we could be looking at a hurricane landfall as the global models are in fairly good agreement in that the intensify this in the GOM and even SHIPS finally intensifies this

[Colin]

Agreed, Derek... thanks for the update!