There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

SURF: Swells generated by Paulette are expected to reach portions of the Leeward Islands Thursday night and Friday and will continue to spread westward to portions of the Greater Antilles, Bahamas, and Bermuda into the weekend. These swells are likely to cause lifethreatening surf and rip current conditions. Please consult products from your local weather office.

At 1100 PM AST (0300 UTC), the center of Tropical Storm Paulette was located near latitude 20.9 North, longitude 48.1 West. Paulette is moving toward the westnorthwest near 10 mph (17 km/h). A motion toward the west or westnorthwest is expected through Friday. A northwestward motion should begin Friday night and continue into the weekend.

Maximum sustained winds remain near 60 mph (95 km/h) with higher gusts. Some weakening is forecast during the next couple of days. However, Paulette could restrengthen early next week.

Tropicalstormforce winds extend outward up to 205 miles (335 km) from the center.

The estimated minimum central pressure is 996 mb (29.42 inches).

tte remains a sheared tropical cyclone with the low-level center southwest of a large area of deep convection. Recent scatterometer data showed peak winds of 45-50 kt, so 50 kt is used as the initial wind speed, which happens to be quite similar to a blend of the latest TAFB/SAB Dvorak estimates. Paulette should begin to weaken tomorrow and continue on a downward trend for 2-3 days as strong shear impacts the cyclone. No change has been made to the forecast through Saturday. Thereafter, the storm is likely to move into a lower-shear environment on the northeastern side of a mid/upper-level low, with SSTs rising to about 29C. There is better agreement among the models tonight that Paulette will survive the shear and be able to take advantage of that favorable environment. In fact, almost all of the most reliable guidance, save LGEM/SHIPS, show the storm becoming a hurricane by 120 hours, and the global models are trending in that direction. The new NHC forecast is raised from the previous one, near the model consensus, but isn't quite as high as the regional hurricane models. The storm is moving at about the same motion as before (295/9 kt). Paulette should turn westward tomorrow as it weakens and encounters stronger low/mid-level ridging. A weakness in the ridge develops by the weekend due to the aforementioned mid/upper-level low, which should cause the tropical cyclone to turn and move faster toward the northwest. The new NHC track forecast is very similar to the previous one, lying on the western side of the guidance after placing heavier weight on the global models and corrected-consensus aids than on the regional hurricane guidance.