Tropical Storm Rachel became the 17th named storm of the 2014 Eastern Pacific hurricane season Wednesday night, and is now gathering strength off the Mexican Pacific coast.
Wind shear, or changing wind direction and/or speed with height, is now weakening, and will allow Rachel to near hurricane-strength this weekend. Then, the system will track over cooler water and more stable air, inducing further weakening later in the weekend or early next week.
Rachel is forecast to move west-northwest over the next several days, before curling north sometime this weekend. While Rachel may indeed curl back toward the Baja peninsula next week, it is expected to have weakened to a tropical depression or remnant low if it ever makes it to land.
This is now the third busiest eastern Pacific hurricane season on record, as measured by the number of season-to-date named storms, according to The Weather Channel hurricane specialist Michael Lowry. Only 1992 (19 storms) and 1985 (20 storms) were busier, says Lowry.
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