image: This infrared image of Darby (right) and Celia (left) from NASA's Aqua satellite AIRS instrument was captured on June 27 at 0853 UTC (4:53 a.m. EDT) showed a very small center of remaining strong convection (purple) and thunderstorms in Darby's center and no strong convection in Celia's center. view more
Credit: NASA JPL, Ed Olsen
The Eastern Pacific twins, Darby and Celia were once both major hurricanes and today are just barely hanging on to tropical storm status. Both are forecast to continue weakening over the next day or two.
Celia is spinning farthest away from land in the Eastern Pacific and seems to be sitting still. At 5 a.m. EDT on Monday, June 28, Celia was located about 1070 miles (1720 km) west-southwest of the southern tip of Baja California. Celia is virtually stationary, moving only 2 mph (4 km/hr) to the southwest. Celia's maximum sustained winds were near 40 mph, but she expected to weaken and become a remnant low pressure area over the next day or two. Minimum central pressure is 1005 millibars.
Tropical Storm Darby is closer to the western Mexico coast, about 240 miles (390 km) south of Zihuatanejo, Mexico, near 14.2 North and 101.4 West. Darby's maximum sustained winds were also near 40 mph, but like Celia, Darby is expected to weaken to a remnant low pressure area by sometime on Tuesday. Darby is moving east-northeast toward the Mexican coast at 6 mph (9 km/hr) although no watches or warnings are posted for this storm. Current minimum central pressure is 1004 millibars.
NASA's Aqua satellite passed over Celia and Darby on June 25, and NASA's Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) instrument captured visible images of each storm. The MODIS team at NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created a mosaic of images from that data, and they can be found at: http://rapidfire.sci.gsfc.nasa.gov/gallery/?2010176-0625/CeliaDarby.A2010176.2140.
By Wednesday, the tropical twins should both be remnant low pressure areas in the Eastern Pacific.