Three tropical storms and two systems that may or may not develop are being observed by meteorologists in the Caribbean, the Gulf of Mexico and the central Atlantic, reflects the site of the United States National Hurricane Center in Miami.
It is a time of unusual activity in the region, where the warm ocean waters due to the El Niño phenomenon facilitate the formation of storms and hurricanes in the Atlantic season from June to November.
However, neither appears to have an immediate chance of becoming a hurricane, according to forecasters’ reports.
Tropical storm Franklin formed on Sunday in a sector of the Caribbean between the island of Hispaniola and Venezuela. Franklin was on Monday 395 kilometers south of Santo Domingo, in the Dominican Republic.
The storm had maximum sustained winds of 85 kilometers per hour and was moving west at a forward speed of 19 kilometers per hour.
Forecasters forecast that Franklin would continue on that course for the remainder of Monday and then turn northward, making contact with southern Hispaniola Tuesday afternoon/night.
The hurricane center issued tropical storm warnings and watches for the entire southern coast of the Dominican Republic and Haiti.
A second tropical storm, Gert, was in the Atlantic Ocean on Monday 730 kilometers east-southwest of the Windward and Leeward Islands. This system had winds of 65 kilometers per hour and moved at a rate of 15 kilometers per hour in a westerly direction.
Forecasters expect Gert to dissipate by Tuesday.
In the Gulf of Mexico, a disturbance of showers and thunderstorms is showing signs of organization and is likely to become a tropical depression or tropical storm before making landfall on the Mexican coast Tuesday, though forecasters warned that southern Texas must be watching this system.
In the eastern Atlantic, around the Cape Verde Islands, a developing tropical wave promises to become a depression this week, forecasters said.
Source: VOA
