UpdateTropical Storm Alex forecast to miss BP spill site

28 June 2010 12:16  [Source: ICIS news]

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LONDON (ICIS news)--Tropical Storm Alex continued on Monday to move northwest in the Gulf of Mexico on a path that would likely miss the site of the BP oil spill, meteorologists said.

However, the storm could reach hurricane strength as early as Monday as it churned towards the northeast coast of Mexico, the US National Hurricane Center said.

Alex could hit the Mexico coast on Thursday, according to National Hurricane Center forecasts.

The tropical storm formed on Saturday near Belize. It lost strength as it crossed the Yucatan Peninsula but regained force as it entered the Gulf of Mexico. It had sustained winds of 50 miles/hour (85 km/hour) as of 04:00 hours Houston time (09:00 hours GMT), the hurricane centre said.

“Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 48 hours … and Alex could become a hurricane later today or on Tuesday,” the National Hurricane Center said.

Coast Guard Admiral Thad Allen, the national incident commander for the spill recovery effort, said on Saturday that contingency plans called for the spill containment crew to begin shutdown and evacuation procedures if forecasts showed a storm with gale force winds (39-54 miles/hour) was approaching and would strike within 120 hours.

“At this point it does not threaten the site but we know that these tracks can change and we're paying very close attention to it,” Allen said.

He added: “There are ways we can move off quicker but that’s not the most desirable way to do it…You start risking the damage to equipment and these are emergency procedures that you would not want to do normally”. 

Oil began leaking from the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico after a 20 April explosion sank the BP-operated Deepwater Horizon offshore rig. The well could be leaking 60,000 bbl/day.

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By: Brian Ford
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