A widespread storm and shower area sweeping through the eastern Caribbean Sea could develop into a tropical cyclone or hurricane and affect Cuba in the coming dayswarned the Forecasting Center of the Island Meteorology Institute.
The state body published its first note on the phenomenon on Thursday, pointing it out “closely monitors” the bad weather area that includes northern Venezuela, the Netherlands Antilles and the southern part of the Lesser Antilles.
“This disturbance is associated with an active tropical wave that has a low-pressure center on its axis. The system has a high probability of becoming a tropical depression in the next 24 to 48 hours as it moves west-northwest,” the official Cubadebate website quoted as saying.
There’s a 90 percent chance the phenomenon will develop in the next 24 hours, according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami. At the moment it leaves heavy rains in the Lesser Antilles and Venezuela.
According to meteorologists, it will move towards the central part of the Caribbean Sea this weekend and could become the next cyclone of the season.
However, the Forecast Center announced this The “tropical wave” moves slowly in atmospheric conditions unfavorable for its development, due to strong winds in the upper layers of the troposphere. These conditions will become more favorable in the coming days over the central Caribbean Sea, where rapid tropical cyclone development could occur if it tilts its trajectory to the northwest.”
So far, the trajectory prediction models consulted show various possibilities over the Western Caribbean, ranging from the western and central regions of Cuba to the Yucatan Channel or peninsula of the same name between Monday 26th and Tuesday 27th of next week.
On Sunday night, the system was located in the waters of the western Caribbean between the seas south of Cubawest of Jamaica and northeast of Cabo Gracias a Dios, in Nicaragua.
The current Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, has been described by meteorologists as “very active,” with the formation of up to 17 cyclones forecast, nine of them with the possibility of the hurricane category to reach.
The Cuban Institute of Meteorology has predicted that one of these cyclones could hit the island with an 85% chancea probability reduced to 60% in the event of a hurricane.