For a brief period early Sunday morning, Tomas reached an intensity of 85kts (Cat 2), but has since weakened significantly in the face of hefty vertical shear. In fact, the low-level circulation is completely exposed and the convection is displaced well to the east. As I write this, there is a resurgence of deep convection over the center, but it's still getting pushed off to the east. At 15Z today, the intensity is 40kts/1005mb (a weak tropical storm) and is forecast to remain weak for another day or so until the shear relaxes and the storm can regain its organization. By later in the week, Tomas is forecast to regain hurricane status and very slowly make its way northward toward Haiti.
Reaching the 19th named storm is extremely rare, but having a named storm in November is not so rare. In recent years, November storms include Ida '09, Paloma '08, Noel '07, Gamma '05, Delta '05, Otto '04, Nicholas '03, etc, etc, etc. The end of the official hurricane season is the end of November, but nature doesn't always obey that arbitrary limit... recent post-November storms include Olga '07, Epsilon '05, Zeta '05, Odette '03, and Peter '03.
Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.
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