Convection somewhat lopsided with the main deep convection on the northern and north-eastern side of the LLC. Conditions aloft look decent for strengthen with a decent inflow and also a good outflow channel on the northern side of the system which should aid steady strengthening. The structure is looking decent though as I said the convection is mainly on the northern flanks. Land interaction is probably going to be an issue as the system gets closer to land and the western flank starts to draw down subsidence from the Central American mountions....but for now the Vis.imagery shows a proto CDO forming about 100 miles off land, so I'd expect the NHC forecast of something around the 50-55kts range at landfall to be a good one, may slightly weaken just before landfall thanks to the land interaction with the mountions, but that remains to be seen, the explosive convection may well balance that out...
Track has seen the system move W/WNW and now in response to an upper trough digging down weakly into the Gulf of Mexico should be enough to take this system ENE/NE, depending on the actual sharpness of the upper trough. Landfall should occur on current heading around 12-18hrs time. Most of the weather will be to the NE/N of the center itself.
ps, Its just worth noting I wouldn't totally rule out hurricane status at this moment, I don't think it'll have enough time to get to that stage but the environment its in right now is condusive for a hurricane, its just time is probably not on its side...If I had to make a call I'd say a peak of between 55-60kts at the moment, though I'm wary that will need perhaps a little longer over waters than I've estimated perhaps.
Edited by kold weather, 29 May 2010 - 15:27 .
