Disturbance getting better organized...

The vertical wind shear is decreasing, and the disturbance I mentioned yesterday was surprisingly quick to take advantage of the less hostile environment.  The SSTs are right around 29C, and with the shear reducing from ~20kts to just 5-10kts, there is a lot of new deep convection located over and around the low-level center.  The 1014mb Low is located just north of the Dominican Republic and still tracking WNW at 8kts.

The forecast is for gradual strengthening and a continued WNW track, bringing it near the FL peninsula on Friday.  The latest model guidance suggests that the intensity at that time will be a strong tropical storm or possibly a minimal hurricane, but 3-day intensity forecasts are a little hazy (recent average 72h forecast error is about +/- 19kts).

Elsewhere, a strong easterly wave just exited the African coast today, so that's worth keeping an eye on over the next few days to see if it develops.

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Disturbance passing north of Virgin Islands...

An easterly wave that exited the African coast about six days ago is presently just north of the Virgin Islands and moving WNW at 12kts.  An upper-level Low to its north has enhanced the outflow aloft (which has invigorated the convection), but at the same time, has also provided fairly strong vertical wind shear on the order of 20-30kts from the west (which will hinder attempts at organization).

The majority of models do not intensify this system, but if it should happen to survive its current and short-term environment, the large-scale steering pattern would bring it into the Gulf of Mexico by the end of the week.

Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.

Alex moves inland...

At about 02Z (10pm EDT), Alex made landfall in a rural part of Mexico between the towns of La Pesca and Punta de Piedra at an intensity of 90kts and 948mb.  It was on an intensifying trend, which tends to make the conditions a bit more severe than if it were weakening or steady at the time (the storm is more coupled with the boundary layer and stronger winds can mix down to the surface).  There have been several tornadoes already reported in association with Alex, mostly in the Brownsville area.  Rainfall is the big problem for northern Mexico and southern Texas... Cameron County (the southern tip of Texas) received anywhere from 5-9" of rain yesterday, and it's not over.  An additional foot of rain is possible over these areas as the storm decays.  Up by Galveston, nearly 2" of rain fell as of this morning.  Unfortunately, I wasn't able to locate any real-time rainfall totals from Mexico, but general reports are claiming 6-12" have fallen so far in coastal areas and 20"+ over the higher terrain further inland.

And, even though the storm is inland and weakening rapidly, the ocean is still feeling its effects... large swells up to 10' are propagating away from the storm's path and impacting nearly the entire Gulf (smaller but still amplified swells will reach the western coast of the Florida peninsula).  Oil spill recovery efforts have been put on hold for a few days due to the rough seas.

I attached a couple of images: a radar image from the Brownsville NEXRAD at the time of landfall (~02Z), and a visible satellite image from about one hour earlier (by 02Z, there was barely enough light for a decent look at the storm).  

 Please visit my tropical Atlantic headquarters.