Tropical Storm Franklin Forms

Forecasters with the National Hurricane Center upgraded Tropical Depression 7 to Tropical Storm Franklin late last night. As of early this morning, the center of circulation of the system was about 300 miles east southeast of Chetumal, Mexico.

The forecast track should carry the system to the west-northwest during the day today. Forecasters believe the system should make landfall on the Yucatan Peninsula sometime late tonight or early Tuesday.

The long range forecast track does bring the system back out into the very warm waters of the Bay of Campeche during the day Tuesday and on Wednesday. During the day Wednesday the systems is forecast to take a more westerly turn and by Thursday should impact the Mexican coast well south of the United States border.

At this time forecasters do not believe that Tropical Storm Franklin will strengthen to hurricane status. Because of the system's close proximity to land, most of the tropical models keep the system just below the hurricane threshold before it makes its final landfall on Thursday.