Storm Emily May Become Cyclone Within 48 Hours, Center Says
Tropical Storm Emily, weakened after passing over mountains in the Dominican Republic on Aug. 4, has a 80 percent chance of re-forming into a tropical cyclone within the next 48 hours, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The remnants of the storm could be forming a tropical depression as it approaches Grand Bahama Island and the Abacos, the Miami-based center said in an advisory posted on its website at 2 p.m. New York time. A U.S. Air Force Reserve plane was sent to determine whether a depression has formed.
Environmental conditions aren’t favorable for the system to gain significant strength, though it may bring squalls and heavy rainfall to parts of the northwestern Bahamas today as it moves north over the island chain and into the open Atlantic tomorrow, the agency said. The earlier advisory at 8 a.m. had forecast a 70 percent chance of the system re-forming into a cyclone.
Forecasters said earlier that the mountains in Haiti and the Dominican Republic, some of which rise to 10,000 feet, could tear Emily’s structure apart and break the storm up before it could re-enter the Atlantic and threaten the Bahamas and possibly Florida.
Emily formed on Aug. 1 in the Caribbean Sea about 50 miles (80 kilometers) southwest of the island of Dominica. The storm was the fifth named system of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.
A weather system becomes a tropical storm and receives a name when its maximum sustained winds reach 39 mph, according to the hurricane center. It becomes a hurricane when its winds reach 74 mph.
Separately, Eugene, which was downgraded from a hurricane in the eastern Pacific, is no longer considered a tropical cyclone and will gradually weaken over the next two days, the center said. The storm was 1,205 miles (1,938 kilometers) west of the southern tip of Baja California as of 8 a.m. local time this morning.
To contact the reporter on this story: Dan Hart in Washington at dahart@bloomberg.net
To contact the editor responsible for this story: Sylvia Wier at swier@bloomberg.net
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