at 3:15 PM by Pierce Larkin

We Now Have Tropical Storm Erika

Well, as of the 11 PM advisory last night, we now have Tropical Storm Erika (interesting spelling of it). It has 45 mph winds, and is churning out across the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And, it looks pretty……ragged. It actually looks really bad at the time.

h/t NASA Satellite
h/t NASA Satellite

The National Hurricane Center has it becoming a hurricane by Sunday, but its really gonna have to make up some lost ground to get there.

h/t NHC
h/t NHC

The reason it looks so bad is because there is some drier air surrounding the system itself, and this is creating issues with convection developing. Combine that with higher shear (wind shear is bad for hurricanes), and a quick forward momentum, and you have a pretty unfavorable environment for a tropical cyclone to develop.

Because of all of that, there are a lot of uncertainties surrounding the system. However, as we saw with Danny last week, if it can get going, it could strengthen really fast. Stay tuned for updates, because this could impact the southeastern United States as a hurricane.