TD 2 Crossing the Yucatan, Bringing Heavy Rains

Tropical Depression Two is slowly spinning west-northwest across Belize after making landfall late Monday afternoon in southern Belize. The storm is bringing heavy rain to Belize, Northern Guatemala, and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, as seen on Belize radar and satellite loops. The center of TD 2 will remain over land all day Tuesday, but TD 2's west-northwest track may be able to bring the storm over the Gulf of Mexico's southern Bay of Campeche on Wednesday--if the storm hasn't dissipated by then. The Bay of Campeche is a region where the topography aids the spin-up of tropical cyclones, and TD 2 may have barely enough time to become Tropical Storm Barry with 40 mph winds before making landfall on Thursday between Veracruz and Tampico. However, the track of the storm may also keep it just inland during the remainder of the week, keeping it from ever getting to tropical storm strength. Heavy rains are the storm's main threat, but a ridge of high pressure over the Gulf of Mexico should keep any of TD 2's rains from reaching the U.S. Observations from an AMSU instrument on a polar orbiting satellite on Monday afternoon found that TD 2 had developed a modest warm core characteristic of a weak tropical storm, and it is possible that NHC will upgrade TD 2 to a tropical storm in post-analysis after the hurricane season is over. Elsewhere in the tropical Atlantic, none of the reliable computer models is showing tropical cyclone development in the next seven days.


Figure 1. MODIS satellite image of TD 2 taken on Monday afternoon, June 17, 2013. image credit: NASA.

Participate in Tuesday's live radio call-in show to talk climate change in Tea Party country
I spent last week in Granby, Colorado at the American Geophysical Union's conference on climate change communication. Approximately 100 of the world's top climate scientists and specialists in communication gathered to discuss how to effectively communicate climate change. Four of the speakers at that conference will be part of a radio call-in radio show on KCNR 1460AM from downtown Redding, the politically conservative heart of deep red Northern California. The show is today, Tuesday, June 17, from 10 am - noon EDT. The show will be live-streamed at http://www.kcnr1460.com/, and will be preserved in the archives as a podcast. KCNR is a Fox News radio station with all-conservative talk radio programming, featuring such guests as Laura Ingraham, Dennis Miller, and Mike Huckabee. Call in with questions today at 530-605-4565. The four guests will be:

1) Gavin Schmidt (NASA GISS and RealClimate)
2) Simon Donner  (http://www.geog.ubc.ca/~sdonner/)
3) Bob Henson (Rough Guide to Climate Change)
4) Melanie Fitzpatrick (Union of Concerned Scientists)

Jeff Masters