Is Tropical Storm Alvin On The Way In The Eastern Pacific Basin?
Area Has High Chance Of Becoming Alvin
The Western Hemisphere could have its first tropical storm of 2025 this week off the southwestern coast of Mexico, roughly two weeks after the beginning of hurricane season for the Eastern Pacific Basin.
What we’re watching: The National Hurricane Center is watching a region south of Mexico in the Eastern Pacific that has a high chance of tropical development in the next couple of days.
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A broad area of low pressure that is producing showers and thunderstorms is becoming better organized, and atmospheric and oceanic conditions favor it becoming a tropical depression soon. If the area of interest becomes a tropical storm, it would be named Tropical Storm Alvin.
(MORE: When Could The Atlantic Hurricane Season’s First Storm Form?)
Is this a threat? The disturbance is several hundred miles south of the Mexican Pacific Coast, and it is slowly moving west-northwestward.
Forecast guidance suggests if a tropical depression or storm does form, it could slowly turn toward the northwest.
This could cause high surf and rip currents along Mexico’s Pacific Coast. There is also the possibility the system drags some locally heavy rainfall into Mexico as it parallels the coastline.
This system is no threat to the United States.
The season is beginning: As senior meteorologist Chris Dolce wrote about earlier this month, the Eastern Pacific hurricane season officially begins on May 15, two weeks earlier than the Atlantic hurricane season.
The season’s first tropical storm will be named Alvin.
While many Eastern Pacific tropical storms and hurricanes move west-northwest and eventually fizzle in the open ocean, some do strike land, as we saw in 2023 with the remnant of Hurricane Hilary in the Desert Southwest and with Category 5 Hurricane Otis in Acapulco, Mexico.
Named storms and hurricanes per day in the Eastern Pacific Basin.
(NOAA/NHC)
Sara Tonks is a content meteorologist with weather.com and has a bachelor’s and a master’s degree from Georgia Tech in Earth and Atmospheric Sciences along with a master’s degree from Unity Environmental University in Marine Science.
