In The Tropics
Hurricane Rick has been under attack by wind shear and has dropped down to a Category 2 storm, with wind shear and cooler water acting to probably reduce it to tropical storm strength when it grazes Baja Sur.
Typhoon Lupit has gone down to a Category 3 storm, but the conditions are favorable for it to be at least a Category 2 storm when it hits the northern end of Luzon island in the Philippines.
Baja Sur and Luzon are the wrong places to be this year as both are braced for their third storm of the season.
While the Atlantic basin benefits from the El Niño condition, the warm waters in the Pacific make times “interesting” in the Pacific.
The US has seen Tropical Storm Claudette, which popped up in the Gulf off the Southwest Coast of Florida and came ashore at the Coast Guard station on the eastern end of Okaloosa Island. There is the possibility of something building in the Western Caribbean off Costa Rica, but that’s about it, and the cool spell that hit is reducing the heat potential of the northern Gulf.
