that's a first. we just had a tropical storm strength system come ashore east of the mexico/guatemala border on the pacific side... not another like it in the record. sure, there was adrian in 2005 that rapidly weakened to a depression before coming in on the narrow coastline of honduras, and barbara NEARLY made it last year around this time (just west of the border). this storm is way east of either, and stronger than both. true that there are a couple of odd storms on the atlantic record that strangely have their origins in pacific waters. those probably reduce the significance of this storm somewhat.
it'll be a couple days before we get an idea just how much mess this thing caused. coastal impact shouldn't be too great.. winds were only around 50kt, only a couple of bays on that side, not really any offshore shallows to run up a surge or the wind to create one. the storm's entire legacy will revolve around how much rain it drops in central america, and what results. it's fairly slow moving and evolved inside a large monsoon trough, so there will probably be some grim news from that part of the world by the weekend.
my prog on it's future.. is just right of the forecast track, just like the storm has trended. maybe it will creep into the gulf of honduras just a bit, maybe into the lower bowl of the bay of campeche.. but there isn't much reason to believe that the storm won't spend much more time on land and eventually dissipate. i think the nhc decay is too fast.. once it clears the mountainous terrain on the western side of central america it's over less rugged terrain and potentially coastal lowlands. expect it will be around at least a couple of more days.
still a highly fluid situation as far as some kind of redevelopment or secondary development, although chances do not appear high at this point. so far the official line on alma hasn't quite hit the mark, so i'm not ready to discount the idea just yet. like some of the others are implying.. the overall pattern would not be unfavorable for something to end up near the yucatan next week; it just isn't clear how that might unfold, at this point.
HF 2318z29may