17-E strengthening
We have been following a disturbance west of Mexico for about two or three days now. It looked to actually have reached tropical depression status yesterday. It has continued organizing and tropical depression 17-E looks to now be tropical storm Polo. We expect that the National Hurricane Center will upgrade to Polo at 2 pm pdt.
17-E is centered near 14.5 N 104.8 or about 315 miles south of Manzanillo. It is moving nne at around 13 mph. We estimate that top sustained winds are now 45 mph. (Our estimate is that this is tropical storm Polo). Some high and mid level clouds are moving onto the coast near Manzanillo.
The strong southerly shear may rip the deep convection from the center of circulation which would weaken T.D. 17-E. We will watch this closely since it is heading toward the Mexican coast. It the convection is removed from the center of circulation, the steering flow will take it more west, away from Mexico.
TropicalWeather.net's Tropical Pic
