Tropical Storm Simon

Tropical Storm Simon is packing 60-kt (70-mph) winds, moving W at 5 kt (6 mph). Moves inland over the coast Sun.

At 300 PM CST (2100 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Simon was located near latitude 15.7 North, longitude 103.9 West. Simon is moving toward the west near 6 mph (9 km/h). A turn to the northwest is expected by early Friday, followed by a northward motion Friday night. On the forecast track, the core of Simon is expected to approach the coast of southwestern and west-central Mexico on Saturday. Maximum sustained winds have increased to near 70 mph (110 km/h) with higher gusts. Rapid strengthening is forecast, and Simon is expected to become a hurricane tonight and a very dangerous category 4 hurricane before it reaches the coast of Mexico. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 70 miles (110 km) from the center. The estimated minimum central pressure is 992 mb (29.30 inches).— National Hurricane Center · public advisory 6

This is the East Pacific · 14°N–27°N, 109°W–101°W. Simon’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 Simon’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.