Tropical Storm Earl continued moving west at 14 miles per hour with sustained 70 miles per hour winds at the 8 a.m. advisory from the National Hurricane Center.
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The Cayman Islands will continue to experience cloudy rainy conditions this evening with a general decrease from late tonight as TS Earl moves to the west to southwest of the Cayman area tonight.
Earl will threaten lives and property as it moves westward across Central America and southern Mexico during the rest of the week.
The U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said Earl threatened to bring heavy rains, flooding and high winds to Belize and Mexico.
Hurricane warnings have been posted from Puerto Costa Maya, Mexico, to the Belize-Guatemala border. That intensification has continued and tropical storm Earl is on the verge of being classified as a category 1 hurricane as it nears Belize.
Earl is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 8 to 12 inches over portions of Belize, Honduras, Guatemala, and the Yucatan peninsula of Mexico through Thursday night.
Earl is expected to crash into Jamaica and the Cayman Islands later this week. Should Earl drift over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico later Friday, the system could strengthen, prior to making another landfall.
Heavy rains and strong winds bore down Monday on the Dominican Republic from a strengthening tropical wave that has caused at least six deaths in the country.
The current forecast calls for Earl’s winds to peak at about 65 miles per hour by Thursday, which is below the 74 miles per hour needed to declare the storm a hurricane.
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“Some of them have made a decision to stay so what we’re doing is we’re giving them some water, flashlights, and informing them as we get updated on the storm”, she said. At this point, whatever is left of Earl will continue to travel west-northwest, most likely impacting northern parts of the state of Veracruz or Tamaulipas, Mexico.
