Tropical Storm Maria
Date:	September 7, 2011
Time:	1PM EST
Winds:	50 mph
Pressure:	1003 mbar

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Tropical Storm Maria sort of popped up out of nowhere. It went from a Tropical Depression of 35mph winds to Tropical Storm status of 50mph within hours.

Current models also show Maria will not strengthen much. The official reason is southeasterly wind shear. Five days out intensity models only show Maria growing to 65mph. I am sort of doubting the intensity models a little at this point. Nevertheless since Maria should make no landfall whatsoever ultimately the intensity is somewhat irrelevant. The only land that should be concerned are the northern Lesser Antilles islands and Puerto Rico. However I believe the impact there will be negligable.

Maria will basically follow the same path that Katia followed. You can basically connect the end cone of Maria to the beginning cone of Katia and you have your projected consensus path that Maria will take.


In the below image we can see a busy tropics. Katia is losing a lot of energy as it enters colder waters, Maria is forming to the right, and there is a new storm forming in the Southern Gulf. The image also shows how the Saharan Dust has not been much of a factor lately which is why storms such as Irene, Katia, and Maria have been able to roll off of Africa with very little disruption.
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