Nora continues to strengthen

Tropical Storm Nora continued to gather strength Saturday on its trek west across the Eastern Pacific. Located 1,100 miles east-southeast from the Big Island and traveling at 14 mph, Nora was circulating 50 mph winds and could become a hurricane late Sunday.

Tropical storm force winds reached out 35 miles from the storm’s center on Saturday evening. However, the forecast intensity for the coming days has been downgraded.

The system is still expected to take a sharp north turn, then a northeast track a good 700 miles east of Hilo. Forecasters with the National Hurricane Center in Florida expect that bend in the track to begin Monday and become sharp by Tuesday. The cyclone at first will be steered west-northwest by a ridge over the east-central Pacific. But the ridge is expected to weaken, slowing Nora’s forward speed and causing the northward turn.

Nora was set to pass into the Central North Pacific basin on Saturday evening and the Central Pacific Hurricane Center in Honolulu was slated to take over monitoring and issuing advisories at that time. Forecasters do not currently believe the system is a threat to the islands.

“Further strengthening seems likely over the next couple of days while Nora remains in a low shear, warm water environment,” NHC forecaster Eric Blake said in a discussion of the storm.

Drier air is forecast to cap Nora’s strength at 70 mph on Monday, with the cyclone on a gradual weakening trend through the rest of the week.

“The most notable change to the forecast is at day three and beyond when the global models are predicting the vertical wind shear to increase earlier and be much stronger than predicted Friday for the cyclone,” Blake said.

Wind shear interferes with the vertical structure of the cyclone, helping to tear it apart.