Tropical Storm Earl, and earlier today we told how the storm was predicted to be a hurricane by later today, and indeed it has now been classed Hurricane Earl.
The latest update from the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami is that Hurricane Earl, given a category 1 status earlier today (Sunday), has the potential to become a category 3 storm giving it a “major” status, according to cnn.com. The storm is heading firmly towards the Leeward Islands and currently the projected path is westwards at around 17 mph.
By 11:00 am ET today it was centered around 225 miles east of Antigua with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph plus stronger bursts. Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, Saba and St. Eustatius, now have a hurricane warning in place while British and U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Culebra and Vieques have been issued with a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning.
By late Sunday the tropical storm conditions in the hurricane warning area will develop into hurricane conditions by early Monday and in the area covered by the hurricane watch and tropical storm warning, the tropical storm conditions will be in place on Monday with possible hurricane conditions by Monday night. For more on this go to cnn.com. We’ll continue to keep you up with developments as the storm progresses.