First TS of the 2011 Hurricane Season!

Hurricane season has arrived! For some this is a very scary season to face and for the weather nerds, fascinating. But no matter how you feel about it, its inevitable... Especially when the first named storm of the season comes about.. And in this case, that would be Tropical Storm Arlene.

Arlene was named last night and is located off the east coast of Mexico. As of 11am this morning, Advisory Number 4 was issued by the National Weather Service stating that this Tropical Storm is gradually strengthening as time goes on. Last night, the storm was not very organized but as of this morning, conditions are looking a lot more favorable for some more organization and strengthening. The maximum sustained winds as reported by our Hurricane Hunters is up to 50mph at this time, moving WNW at 8mph and the minimum center of low pressure is 1000mb.

With that being said, the areas of concern are Tuxpan, Mexico and climbs up North to La Cruz, Mexico. This broad area has been issued with a series of both Tropical Storm and even Hurricane warnings. The Hurricane warnings are due to the possibly of Hurricane force conditions possible in the noted areas as well as the anticipation and concern that this storm could indeed strengthen up to a Hurricane force (although not very likely at this time). As for the US, a small area of the southernmost portion of Texas around Brownsville has been shaded under low impact concern possible for this storm. Rain is the main concern with this, wind is not expected to play a factor for Southern Texas as of right now. The impact areas of concern are shown in the figure below for more information.

As always, to get the latest advisories on TS Arlene, visit: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/index.shtml? The next full advisory will be issued at 1:00pm CDT which is 2pm for me, ET.

And also, tune in to: http://www.wunderground.com/wxradio/wubroadcast.html for a special live broadcast about TS Arlene by two Meterologists from Wunderground, Dr. Jeff Masters and Angela Fritz at 4pm ET and 1pm PT, should be very interesting for all you weather lovers!