(Image courtesy of NOAA)

Hawaii 24/7 Staff

Tropical Storm Flossie, which formed in the Eastern Pacific Ocean and strengthened quickly Thursday, is not likely to become a hurricane.

Weather experts report the storm still is nearly 2,000 east of the Hawaiian islands and has maximum sustained winds of 45 miles per hour.

The storm is expected to weaken as it moves over cooler waters, but still could have an impact on eastern shores of the islands beginning Monday, July 29.

On Thursday, NASA’s Aqua satellite passed over Flossie and captured an infrared look at the storm and saw a large area of powerful thunderstorms around its center and south of the center.

The Atmospheric Infrared Sounder or AIRS instrument flies aboard NASA’s Aqua satellite. AIRS captured an infrared image of Tropical Storm Flossie on July 25 at 10:05 UTC (12:05 a.m. Hawaii time).

Infrared data helps determine temperature, such as the cloud top and sea surface temperatures. AIRS data revealed that Flossie’s strongest storms and heaviest rains were around its center and in a fragmented band of thunderstorms south of the center. Those areas had cloud top temperatures near -63F/-52C, indicating very high thunderstorms.

The National Hurricane Center or NHC noted that at 8 a.m. PDT (11 a.m. EDT) the center of Tropical Storm Flossie was near latitude 15.3 north and longitude 125.6 west.

Flossie is moving toward the west near 16 mph (26 kph) and is expected to continue in that direction for the next couple of days.

The estimated minimum central pressure is 1003 millibars.

The NHC’s current forecast track takes Flossie toward Hawaii as a depression by Tuesday, July 30.

— Find out more:
www.prh.noaa.gov/cphc/