Sun Sentinel Palm Beach Edition
Dorian growing stronger
Tropical storm moves west, could become hurricane by Tuesday
Tropical Storm Dorian, forecast to be at or near hurricane status by Tuesday as it moves west into the Caribbean, put Barbados under a tropical storm warning and other Caribbean islands under tropical storm watches Sunday.
Dorian continued to strengthen Sunday afternoon, reaching maximum sustained winds of 50 mph as of 5 p.m., the National Hurricane Center said.
Although Dorian is on a general path toward Florida, it is far too soon to determine its impact on any part of the state.
The range of potential outcomes was still pretty wide, Senior Hurricane Specialist Jack Beven wrote in a forecast discussion posted on the National Hurricane Center’s website on Sunday.
The biggest potential plot development, at least for Florida residents, is what will happen to Dorian as it crosses over Hispaniola, the island that includes the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
“However, the large range of possibilities includes both Dorian going north of Hispaniola and remaining a hurricane and the small cyclone dissipating completely over Hispaniola,” Beven wrote.
In its 5 p.m. Sunday advisory, the hurricane center said Dorian’s center was about 375 miles east
southeast of Barbados.
The storm was becoming a little better organized, the advisory said.
Barbados, St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines were under tropical storm warnings, meaning that tropical storm conditions are expected to hit the island within 36 hours.
Meanwhile, Martinique and Grenada were under tropical storm watches, meaning that tropical storm conditions are possible there over the next 40 hours.
Each of the those islands is located in the southeastern rim of the Caribbean.
Dorian is expected to pass over the general vicinity of Barbados on Monday night before moving east over the area of St. Lucia and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
Dorian is also expected to make a turn toward the west-northwest Monday, which accounts for the socalled storm cone aiming for the general neighborhood of Florida. It’s too early to predict the storm’s exact path and possible impact on the state.
Elsewhere in the tropics
A big yet disorganized cluster of storms and clouds spanning several hundred miles in the Atlantic off the U.S. Southeast had an 80% chance of becoming a depression in the next few days. However, the system was moving to the northeast into the open ocean “well offshore of the southeastern United States,” the hurricane center noted in a tropical weather outlook on Sunday.
The next named storm will be Erin.
We are well into hurricane season, and forecasters have warned that we may see more dangerous storms this year than originally predicted as conditions become more favorable going into the peak of the season.
Hurricane season runs from June 1 to Nov. 30, but 95% of storms are produced during the 2½ months of its peak, from mid-August to late October.