Tropical Storm Frank
Posting Date: 29 August 2010
Location: East Pacific Basin
Peril: Windstorm
UPDATED 25 AUGUST.
At 15:00 UTC on Sunday, 22 August, a tropical depression (Nine-E) offshore Mexico in the Eastern Pacific developed into the sixth named storm of the 2010 Eastern Pacific Hurricane Season – Tropical Storm Frank. Over the last few days the system has moved (west-northwest) parallel to the coast of southern Mexico with little change in strength. As of 09:00 UTC on Wednesday, 25 August Frank is tracking away from the Mexican coast, and has strengthened slightly.
According to the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) at 09:00 UTC on Wednesday, 25 August, the center of Frank was located close to 16.2°N 103.6°W, around 200 miles (320 km) south-southwest of Manzanillo, Mexico. The NHC report that at this time that Frank had maximum sustained winds of 70 mph (110km/hr), a minimum central pressure of approximately 991 mb, and was moving towards the west-northwest at 9 mph (15 km/hr). At 09:00 UTC tropical storm force winds were extending outwards up to 70 miles (110km) from the center of Frank - Frank is however far enough offshore to mean that tropical storm force winds are not currently impacting the coastline.
The storm is expected to continue to track towards the west-northwest through to Friday, 27 August - which would see the system move away from the southwestern cost of Mexico. Model guidances are in good agreement with this track, forecasting Frank to maintain its west-northwest track throughout the forecast period. The NHC has a high confidence in this track forecast.
The NHC are calling for some strengthening of Tropical Storm Frank today (Wednesday, 24 August), and for the system to become a weak category one hurricane on the Saffir Simspon Hurricane Wind Scale (SSHWS) later today. Beyond 48 hours the system is expected to weaken. The general trend in the model intensity guidances is a steady weakening of Frank, beginning in the next 12 to 24 hours. A category one hurricane is the maximum intensity reached by the model runs.
Tropical Storm Frank has tracked far enough away from the coast for the Government of Mexico to remove all tropical storm warnings, and the system no longer poses a heavy rain threat.
RMS will continue to monitor the system, however given the NHC forecast track (and the certainty associated with this) this will be the last RMS activity posted on Frank, unless there is significant change to the forecast track.
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