The tropical wave named Fiona could turn into a hurricane Sunday as it crosses over Puerto Rico, an island which hasn’t been lucky with tropical systems in recent years. Tropical Storm Fiona continued gaining strength Saturday night as it crossed the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and made a beeline toward Puerto Rico.
Fiona had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph as it churned into Puerto Rico’s path, which isn’t far from a Category 1 hurricane status.
The National Hurricane Center on Saturday night stated that “hurricane conditions are expected across portions of Puerto Rico on Sunday” as the storm moves across the island.
“Tropical storm conditions are now spreading across the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and will spread across Puerto Rico tonight,” the NHC stated in its 11 p.m. ET update on Saturday. The statement went on to say Fiona will continue a westward path and cross into the Dominican Republic and Haiti on Sunday.
Though the storm has taken mostly a western path since its formation in the Atlantic, hurricane models predict it will likely take a northern turn into the Atlantic once it passes Hispaniola, then take a northeastern path across Bermuda and then perhaps fizzle at sea.
The National Weather Service predicts that Fiona will reach hurricane status as a Category 1 by Sunday evening as it crosses the western part of Puerto Rico, maybe even reaching Cat 2 status over the Dominican Republic.
As storms move over warm waters of the Atlantic Ocean, Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico, they usually become more powerful. Once they reach wind speeds of 74 mph, that’s when it becomes a Category 1 hurricane. It becomes a Category 2 hurricane at 96 mph.
Even if they don’t reach winds high enough to become hurricanes, these storms can still dump rainfalls that can cause life-threatening floods, which could happen in the islands.
The NHC stated that “heavy rains from Fiona will continue to spread west” across the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Saturday through Sunday, the Dominican Republic on Sunday and the Turks and Caicos islands on Monday night.
“These rainfall amounts are expected to produce life-threatening flash floods and urban flooding, along with mudslides in higher terrain, especially across portions of Puerto Rico and portions of the eastern Dominican Republic.”
The storm’s path beyond the islands southeast of the U.S. is still quite uncertain. Some weather models have the storm going into Florida or the Carolinas, but most have it taking a turn and becoming just a rather nasty sea storm in the Atlantic, far away from land.
Puerto Rico is still trying to recover both physically and mentally from Hurricane Maria, which devastated the island in 2017 as a Category 5 storm. Most of the island lost power, it wiped out most power grids and caused physical erosion to the country’s coastline.
Maria’s damage was estimated at $91.6 billion, which is the third-costliest hurricane on record.
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