Tropical Storm Simon

Tropical Storm Simon is packing 45-kt (50-mph) winds, moving W at 6 kt (7 mph). Moves inland over the coast Tue.

At 300 AM CST (0900 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Simon was located near latitude 15.4 North, longitude 103.1 West. Simon is moving toward the west near 7 mph (11 km/h) and this motion is expected to continue through today, followed by a turn toward the west-northwest to north-northwest on Friday. Simon should turn toward the north Friday night and approach the coast of southwestern Mexico on Saturday. Maximum sustained winds remain near 50 mph (85 km/h) with higher gusts. Rapid strengthening is forecast, and Simon is expected to become a major hurricane by late Friday or early Saturday. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles (75 km) from the center. The estimated minimum central pressure is 1000 mb (29.53 inches).— National Hurricane Center · public advisory 4

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

This is the East Pacific · 13°N–28°N, 110°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.

searched 0 vetted voices and the open field — nothing said about this system cleared the screen.