Tropical Storm Rachel Forms Off the Coast of Mexico

Tropical Storm Rachel became the 17th named storm of the 2014 Eastern Pacific hurricane season Wednesday night.

Wind shear, or changing wind direction and/or speed with height, is expected to put a lid on the system’s intensity in the short-term. Then, the system will track over cooler water and more stable air, inducing further weakening by the weekend or early next week.

Rachel is forecast to move west-northwest over the next several days, before curling north sometime this weekend. While Rachel may indeed curl back toward the Baja peninsula early next week, it is expected to have weakened to a tropical depression or remnant low if it ever makes it to land.

This is now the third busiest eastern Pacific hurricane season on record, as measured by the number of season-to-date named storms, according to The Weather Channel hurricane specialist Michael Lowry. Only 1992 (19 storms) and 1985 (20 storms) were busier, says Lowry.

Here’s the latest information on this storm.