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Tropical Storm Erika strengthens

Erika is expected to produce total rain accumulations of two to four inches over numerous Leeward Islands through Thursday.

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A slight decrease in forward speed and steady strengthening is expected through the next 48 hours.

The National Hurricane Center reports the ninth named storm of the season: Tropical Storm Ignacio.

Southwest Florida has a 20 to 30 percent chance of experiencing tropical storm force winds (39 miles per hour or higher) by Monday morning.

Danny is now 1,090 miles east of Windward Islands, and moving west-northwest at 12 mph.

“This is a fast-moving storm, and so we expect conditions to deteriorate rapidly”, he said.

Maximum sustained winds are near 45 miles per hour. “Obviously, with the five-day cone of uncertainty now extending into the eastern Gulf of Mexico, we encourage everybody to also monitor the storm”, said Jason Beaman, the warning coordination meteorologist at the NWS in Mobile.

Tropical storm conditions are expected to first reach the warning area in the Leeward Islands tonight, and reach the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Thursday.

Computer models are in agreement for Erika’s path in the next three days, but they begin to diverge at days 4 and 5 in the forecast period, which is critical for knowing whether the storm will affect almost 6 million people living in a thin strip of land from Miami to West Palm Beach, Fla. According to numerous weather forecasts, the storm could develop into a hurricane by the time she reaches our area.

A tropical storm watch covers Guadeloupe, St. Martin and St. Barthelemy.

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The storm will continue to move in a mostly westward fashion through Thursday as it tracks near Puerto Rico. However if Erika were to continue moving more westerly instead of turning to the north then we would need to watch it much closer. Beyond that the forecast environment looks more favorable for development and if the storm doesn’t get caught up in mountainous terrain over Hispaniola may strengthen once it gets north of the island.

Eastern Caribbean braces for rain, wind as Erika...