Tropical Storm Don in Southeast Texas Track for Landfall

Tropical Storm Don in Southeast Texas Track for Landfall:

Don, the fourth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, gained strength today, with winds increasing to 45 miles (72 kilometers) an hour from 40 mph, according to a National Hurricane Center bulletin at 10:40 a.m. East Coast time today.

The storm was 520 miles east-southeast of Corpus Christi, Texas, heading west-northwest at 14 miles per hour. Maps posted on the center’s website show Don making landfall as a tropical storm in the Corpus Christi area early July 30.

“Don is a small-scale thing,” said Jim Rouiller, senior energy meteorologist at Planalytics Inc. in Berwyn, Pennsylvania. “I think it is important for the energy industry to understand this will represent very little impact. There might be some brief, short-duration shut-ins and they may evacuate non-essential personnel, but the people who keep the pumps going will still be in business.”
Energy companies have begun taking precautions as Don approaches. BP Plc said it shut production at its Atlantis platform, while Anadarko Petroleum Corp. evacuated workers and prepared to shut down its Marco Polo, Nansen, Boomvang, Gunnison, Red Hawk and Constitution production facilities.

A weather system becomes tropical when it develops cyclone characteristics, and becomes a named tropical storm when its winds reach at least 39 mph. A storm becomes a hurricane when winds hit 74 mph.

The U.S. hasn’t had a direct hit from a tropical storm since Bonnie went ashore in Florida in July 2010. The last hurricane to hit the U.S. was Ike, a Category 2 storm, in Texas in 2008.

Previously, satellite imagery indicated a tropical depression or tropical storm could be forming about 90 miles north of Cancún. An Air Force Reserve hurricane hunter aircraft investigated the area and confirmed the presence of circulation within the system.

Tropical Storm Don has maximum sustained winds of 40 mph and is headed west-northwest at 12 mph.

The weather service advises that interests in the central and western Gulf of Mexico should monitor this system. That includes Wharton County, along with the rest of coastal Southeast Texas.

Many tropical cyclones develop when the atmospheric conditions around a weak disturbance in the atmosphere are favorable. The background environment is modulated by climatological cycles and patterns such as the Madden-Julian oscillation, El Niño-Southern Oscillation, and the Atlantic multidecadal oscillation. Others form when other types of cyclones acquire tropical characteristics. Tropical systems are then moved by steering winds in the troposphere; if the conditions remain favorable, the tropical disturbance intensifies, and can even develop an eye. On the other end of the spectrum, if the conditions around the system deteriorate or the tropical cyclone makes landfall, the system weakens and eventually dissipates. It is not possible to artificially induce the dissipation of these systems with current technology.
-With assistance from Christian Schmollinger in Singapore, Sherry Su in London, Barbara Powell in Dallas, Aaron Clark and Jim Polson in New York, Joe Carroll in Chicago, Edward Klump and Bradley Olson in Houston and Lynn Doan in San Francisco.