Tropical Storm Arlene has formed over the Bay of Campeche, in the southern Gulf of Mexico. As of the 5 am update, she had winds around 40 mph. The center is moving to the WNW around 8 mph, so it should blow into the Mexican coast early tomorrow morning. I think south TX will get some rain out of this, but not much. Brownsville may see a ½” at the most, but hopefully that changes. TX needs rain! By the way, Arlene was the first named storm of the 2005 season as well, since the list of names gets repeated every 6 years (unless it does major damage, or creates massive loss of life, such as Katrina- then the name gets retired from the list).

Tropical Storm ARLENE

Other than the tropical action, heat will be a big story today. The storms that are firing in OK should fall apart later this morning, and then it’s a return to hot temps. It’ll feel like 105 today in NW OK, and even hotter tomorrow for other MW states…I’ll have that forecast on the show.

Rain is moving away from the East Coast right now, but some wind may produce short delays in the NYC area for flights.

FL is the exception today. More beneficial rain is in store for the Sunshine State, and it’s already appearing on my radar. Full updates on the show.

As for the NM/TX/AZ fire weather – looks like more wind and warm temps. for today. Wind advisories in NV and UT too, with gusts to 45 mph in Las Vegas and 55 mph in Salt Lake City. Dry thunderstorms will develop in AZ this afternoon, so look for some blowing dust and hot temps near Phoenix.

Rain is falling in CA and NV now, and some showers will edge to the NW too. I’ll have the updates.

I’ll tweet the update on Arlene this morning too. I know I’m late on the whole twitter thing, but at least I beat out the Pope!