The fifth Tropical Depression of the 2010 hurricane season formed Tuesday evening and could strengthen into Tropical Storm Danielle by the early hours of Thursday morning.
As of the 10am Wednesday morning update, TD #5 was weakly organized while moving northwestward at 10mph. While the center of circulation was not found to be very well defined, winds were projected to be sustained around 30mph. At this time, the storm is experiencing some unfavorable upper-level winds along with some drier air filtering into it. The official forecast still calls for TD #5 to intensify into a weak tropical storm just before making landfall sometime early Thursday morning. At the same time, due to the large, sprawling structure of this system, intensification most likely will be slow. That being said, with an impact in landfall projected a little sooner as of the last update, there is still a chance this could remain a depression before actually forming into Tropical Storm Danielle. Something that will have to be watched very closely. At this point, should the storm be named, it most likely will not hold tropical storm characteristics for long.
The storm is expected to continue to move toward the Northwest, making landfall along the Eastern Louisiana coast. Tropical Storm Warnings have been issued from Destin, Florida to Intracoastal City, Louisiana...which includes Lake Pontchartrain and New Orleans. With weakly organized systems, as is the case of TD #5, the exact track is not as important as how far the effects of this storm could be felt. Heavy rainfall will most likely be the main impact of this system with 5 - 8 inches of rain not out of the question for the Gulf Coast.
