Tropical Storm Rachel

Tropical Storm Rachel is packing 50-kt (60-mph) winds, moving WNW at 10 kt (12 mph). Expected to stay over open water.

At 600 AM CST (1200 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Rachel was located near latitude 15.1 North, longitude 104.8 West. Rachel is moving toward the west-northwest near 13 mph (20 km/h). A general northwestward motion at a slower forward speed is expected during the next few days. On the forecast track, the center of Rachel is predicted to move parallel to, but stay offshore of, the coast of southwestern Mexico. Maximum sustained winds are near 60 mph (95 km/h) with higher gusts. Gradual strengthening is expected during the next few days, and Rachel is forecast to become a hurricane during the next day or so. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 160 miles (260 km) from the center. The estimated minimum central pressure is 992 mb (29.30 inches).— National Hurricane Center · public advisory 9

Rachel tracks over open water — no coast is in the outlook. Along its path, our forecast reads:

This is the East Pacific · 13°N–25°N, 118°W–102°W. Rachel’s forecast track is the dotted spine — the labelled dots mark its position each day. Every cell is shaded by how many hours it spends inside Rachel’s gale-force (≥34 kt · 39 mph) wind across the whole forecast, the damaging core counted double.

Read it two ways at once. Colour is the total — the hours of gale-force wind a place piles up. A slow storm writes its danger in duration, not in any single gust, so the longer the wind sits over a place, the deeper its colour. Opacity is confidence — solid where the official probability of that wind is high, faint where it is only a chance. So a deep, solid cell is a place the wind will work for a long time and likely will; a pale, faint one is a brief, uncertain brush at the edge of the cone.