Storm Ernesto Puts Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on Alert

Storm Ernesto’s position as of Tuesday morning. Photo: X/ @caribbeannewsuk

August 13, 2024 Hour: 12:39 pm

The 2024 hurricane season is forecasted to be one of the most active, with up to 25 storms and 13 hurricanes expected to form.

On Tuesday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) issued a hurricane warning for the Virgin Islands and the Puerto Rican islands of Vieques and Culebra as Tropical Storm Ernesto approaches those areas.

Tropical storm warnings remain in effect for Saint Kitts and Nevis, Montserrat, Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, Guadeloupe, Saint Martin, and Saint Barthélemy, according to the NHC’s 11:00 a.m. local time bulletin.

At that time, the tropical storm was located about 250 kilometers east-southeast of St. Croix and about 405 kilometers east-southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico. Ernesto has maximum sustained winds of 85 kilometers per hour and is moving west-northwest at 30 kilometers per hour.

The center of Ernesto is expected to pass near or over the Virgin Islands on Tuesday night, and then move just northeast and north of Puerto Rico tonight and into Wednesday. Then Ernesto is expected to move over the western Atlantic later in the week.

Tropical Storm Ernesto will be impacting the eastern Caribbean today then strengthen to a hurricane as it threatens Bermuda late this week. The current consensus of weather models keeps the centre offshore as it approaches Atlantic Canada early next week. pic.twitter.com/DLKjM9KvMr
— Jim Abraham (@YHZweatherguy) August 13, 2024

So far this hurricane season in the Atlantic basin, which began on June 1, five tropical storms have formed: Alberto, Beryl, Chris, Debby, and Ernesto.

Of these, Beryl and Debby strengthened into hurricanes, with the former even reaching the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale, Category 5, causing destruction and death in the Caribbean and the United States.

The 2024 Atlantic hurricane season is forecasted to be one of the most active and intense in decades, with up to 25 storms and 13 hurricanes expected to form.