Tropical Storm Arthur forms along the Gulf Coast
1-minute Mesoscale Domain Sector GOES-19 (GOES-East) Visible and Infrared Window images (above) showed Potential Tropical Cyclone One as is intensified to form Tropical Storm Arthur as of 1500 UTC on 17 June 2026. Plots of surface winds at METAR sites revealed that strongest winds were occurring in the eastern semicircle of Arthur, with a peak wind gust of 57 kts (66 mph) at Galveston Airport (a wind gust to 81 mph was recorded at a maritime site east-southeast of Galveston). An isolated inland convective cell produced GLM-detected lightning activity northeast of the storm center from 1357-1428 UTC. The exposed low level circulation center of Arthur moved inland after 1500 UTC, and began to slowly migrate westward — then later re-formed to the northeast after 2100 UTC.
The bulk of Arthur’s deep convection remained offshore, south and southeast of the storm center — due to the deep-layer wind shear that was present across the area (below).
Sea Surface Temperatures (SSTs) across the northwestern Gulf of Mexico were around 28 C (below) — although a small area of nearshore water having a SST value of 29 C existed in the area where Arthur formed.
Wind shear and SST products were sourced from the CIMSS Tropical Cyclones site.