User blog:Hurricane Layten/Morning updates on the tropics posted

It seems that an interesting turn is in order for the tropics in the coming days, with old storms dying out, a major hurricane threat still lingering in the Caribbean, and another pesky, hard to forecast storm in the Pacific basin.

Lets start this morning with Hurricane Ulika, which as i anticipated, has become a hurricane, when the CPHC said it was likely to peak at 65 mph yesterday afternoon. The storm is moving to the northeast, and I expect further intensification will commence as the storm generally stays in a very favourable environment. The NHC is currently forecasting a peak of 80 mph in 12 hours, but I wouldn’t be surprised to see it become a category 2 hurricane before then, giving its rapid intensification phase from the last 24 hours. The storm doesn’t pose any risk to any land areas.

Next up, Invest area 97-L, which still lacks a closed low level circulation as it approaches the Lesser Antilles today. I expect the storm will be a tropical depression by this evening, and might even be a tropical storm by early tomorrow morning. There now seems to be a consensus that Matthew will eventually become a violent hurricane, before making landfall in the Greater Antilles, the Bahamas, and even in the Southeast US, as shown in some model runs. The system is refusing to follow its forecasts, so any interests should closely monitor the progress off this system whilst it is active.

Next up, we now have Tropical Storm Chaba in the west Pacific. The storm will eventually become a typhoon as it heads towards Taiwan, and I expect that it will end up being at least a category 3 before landfall in about 6 days’ time, but as of now, there is no land threats.

Finally, Tropical Storm Roslyn is expected to weaken to a remnant low later today without impacting any land areas, so theres not much to discuss there.

I will have more here later, but until then, have a good one.