Tuesday, October 12, 2010

Hurricane Paula: 9th of Season

Early this Tuesday morning Paula reached hurricane strength with 75 mph sustained winds, just at category one on the scale. This is the ninth hurricane of the 2010 season. Paula is drifting northward over good surface warm waters of the western Caribbean, and the center of the storm should remain just east of the Yucatan over the next couple of days, allowing it to maintain its strength at least through mid-week.
After that, though, you can see Paula is expected to begin weakening as it encounters more shear and potentially interacts with western Cuba. The track, however, is still highly uncertain by the end of this week, when Paula could track toward southern Florida.
In any case, it does not appear that Paula or its remnants will have any impact on Virginia's weather in the future.