Paul threatens Mexico; World Series weather in Detroit

In the Atlantic, there are no threat areas to discuss, and none of the models are forecasting tropical development over the next six days. In the Eastern Pacific, Tropical Storm Paul is forecast to pass very close to Baja as a tropical storm on Tuesday and then strike the coast of mainland Mexico. Paul is under only about 10 knots of shear this morning, and his satellite appearance has shown as a modest improvement since last night. The shear is expected to remain below 20 knots through Monday, which may give Paul enough time to strengthen to a Category 1 hurricane. Shear is expected to increase on Monday, significantly weakening Paul before he makes landfall in Mexico. The GFDL model is still predicting that Paul will become a major hurricane, but the rest of the models do not agree with this. The other models' forecast of a weakening Tropical Storm Paul at landfall in Mexico Tuesday seem more reasonable, given the 20+ knots of shear expected to impact the storm beginning Monday.

A QuikSCAT pass from 9:22am EDT today showed Paul's top winds at about 50 mph. It is interesting to compare this image (the standard 25 km resolution product) with the high resolution 12.5 km QuikSCAT image of the same region. The high-resolution product suffers from more ambiguity about which direction the winds are blowing, and sometimes the algorithm to detect which direction the winds are blowing gets it wrong. The winds on the south side of Paul in the high-resolution 12.5 km QuikSCAT are exactly the opposite of what they should be.

World Series forecast
It looks like some nasty weather for the Tigers and Cardinals tonight, with a game-time temperature of 40 degrees, occasional rain showers, and 15-20 mph winds. The wind should be from the west-northwest, from home plate towards left field (take a look at the orientation of Comerica Park with respect to the wind). This will favor the home-run hitting possibilities for right-handed sluggers like Albert Pujols and Magglio Ordonez. Snow may mix in with the rain late in the game. I doubt the rain showers will be heavy enough to force a rain delay.

Jeff Masters