As of 11 a.m. EDT Tuesday, we have our fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.
- Tropical Storm Earl forms south of Jamaica
- Expected to make landfall near Belize
- Expected to be a hurricane before landfall
Tropical Storm Earl is moving towards Central America with 60 mph winds. The pressure is down to 996 mb. Earl is moving to the west at 16 mph. A large dome of high pressure stretching from the Gulf of Mexico across the Florida peninsula to Bermuda will keep this storm on its westward track for the next few days. Most of our model runs converge on a landfall near Belize, then eventually take it over the southern Bay of Campeche.
- RELATED:
Earl is expected to make landfall in Central America, possibly as a hurricane. Hurricane warnings are up from Puerto Costa Maya, Mexico south to the Belize/Guatemala border.
Current indications take this into the southern Yucatan Peninsula by Wednesday or Thursday, then across the southern Bay of Campeche and into the main Mexican coastline by the weekend.
No direct impact to Central Florida is expected from this storm. Moisture being pulled up across the Bahamas from Earl and another wave near the Bahamas will help bring rain chances up in our forecast, but that should be all for our area. Right now, none of the other tropical waves in the Atlantic basin are expected to develop into anything more than a wave.