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Tropical Storm Cristina Discussion Number 7
NWS National Hurricane Center Miami FL EP052020
300 AM MDT Wed Jul 08 2020
Satellite images indicate that deep convection has been gradually
increasing in association with Cristina during the past several
hours. However, the storm still lacks banding features and the
low-level center is located on the northeastern side of the
convection due to moderate wind shear. An ASCAT-B overpass from a
few hours ago showed maximum winds of only 30-35 kt in the
southeastern quadrant. The initial intensity is held at 40 kt for
this advisory blending the ASCAT data with the 3.0/45 kt Dvorak
estimates from TAFB and SAB.
Cristina is forecast to remain over warm SSTs and in a moist air
mass for the next couple of days. These favorable conditions
combined with lessening wind shear should promote steady
strengthening during the next two days or so. However, beyond that
time, Cristina is expected to move over waters cooler than 26 C and
into a progressively drier and more stable environment. These
negative factors for the cyclone should promote weakening after 48
hours. The new NHC intensity forecast is again nudged downward
from the previous one, but it still lies at the high end of
the guidance in the short term in case Cristina takes advantage of
the generally conducive conditions for intensification.
The tropical storm has turned a little to the left recently, but
its longer term motion is still west-northwestward at 13 kt. A
deep-layer ridge centered over the southwestern U.S. is expected to
remain stationary, and that should cause the cyclone to continue
moving west-northwestward at about the same forward speed for the
next 4 days or so. By the end of the forecast period, a slight
turn to the west is forecast as the weakening system is expected to
be steered by the low-level flow. The track models are tightly
packed, and only minor changes were made to the previous NHC
forecast.
FORECAST POSITIONS AND MAX WINDS
INIT 08/0900Z 13.9N 106.5W 40 KT 45 MPH
12H 08/1800Z 14.9N 108.0W 50 KT 60 MPH
24H 09/0600Z 16.1N 109.8W 55 KT 65 MPH
36H 09/1800Z 17.1N 111.6W 65 KT 75 MPH
48H 10/0600Z 18.0N 113.4W 75 KT 85 MPH
60H 10/1800Z 19.0N 115.6W 70 KT 80 MPH
72H 11/0600Z 20.0N 118.0W 65 KT 75 MPH
96H 12/0600Z 21.4N 123.6W 50 KT 60 MPH
120H 13/0600Z 21.9N 129.2W 40 KT 45 MPH
$$
Forecaster Cangialosi
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