Tropical Cyclone 02B in the North Indian Ocean has recently been upgraded to Cyclonic Storm Mora, and has continued to become better organized today as it tracks northward through the Bay of Bengal. As of 18:00 UTC this afternoon, 02B had 3-minute maximum sustained winds of 35 knots and 1-minute maximum sustained winds of 40 knots. Just recently, the India Meteorological Department named the system Mora. Mora is the second named storm of the 2017 North Indian Ocean Cyclone Season.

Mora has very deep convection as indicated by the rainbow image above. However, the cyclone is not very well-organized yet since it lacks much in the way of banding features. The latest automated T-numbers from the University of Wisconsin are at T3.3/51 kt. However, based on the cyclone’s overall appearance, Mora is probably not quite that strong. Mora is expected to strengthen over the next two days to a hurricane-force cyclone, and is expected to make landfall in Bangladesh, the “Seven Sisters” region of India, or even western Myanmar. Wind shear is a moderately favorable 15-20 knots, which could allow for some additional strengthening of Mora but might prevent any significant or rapid intensification before landfall.

In the East Pacific…an area of low pressure has recently formed well south of Mexico, but is currently disorganized with minimal convective activity. The 11:00 AM PDT tropical weather outlook from Sunday issued by the NHC gave the system a near 0 percent chance of developing into a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours, and a 40 percent chance of development during the next five days. If the system becomes a named storm, it will be named Beatriz. The 12z Sunday ECMWF model develops Beatriz from this system, but not until over a week out. Much like the ECMWF, the 12z Sunday GFS model also develops a weak tropical cyclone from this system, but not for over a week. This makes me think that development of this system is probably less likely to occur during the next five days, but still could occur after then. I give this system a 20 percent chance of development during the next five days and a 50 percent chance of development during the next 10 days.

Invest 95W remains active in the West Pacific, but it is unlikely to develop into a tropical cyclone. On the Atlantic side…the 00z Sunday ECMWF model run indicated the possibility of development in the Northwest Gulf of Mexico, but this idea was dropped on the 12z Sunday run. The recent GFS runs have continued to indicate no development in the Atlantic. However, as noted yesterday, models are indicating the possibility of a favorable MJO passage in the 8-14 day period. Like always, we will have to keep watching. I will be back for another post tomorrow discussing Mora and the East Pacific system.