Friday, August 25, 2006

by Margot Habiby and Shannon D. Harrington

USA (Bloomberg), MIAMI: Tropical Storm Ernesto may be christened within a day, as a patch of thunderstorms and winds in the Caribbean turned into a tropical depression, the fifth of the season, the US National Hurricane Center said.

The tropical depression is located about 155 miles southwest of Martinique and about 455 miles south-southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico and is moving to the west at about 22 mph. Three- and five-day forecasts indicate the system will pass just shy of Jamaica on Sunday before heading for the Gulf of Mexico as a tropical storm.

"The forecast track has it going through the channel south of Cuba and passing close to Jamaica if that track were to be verified,'' hurricane center meteorologist Mark McInerney said.

Trajectories show the storm coming closest to Jamaica in three days, then heading toward the Gulf of Mexico, though "it's too soon to tell'' whether it will head for the Gulf, he said.

Data from a US Air Force reconnaissance plane, nicknamed a "hurricane hunter,'' indicated Thursday afternoon that the system had developed characteristics of a tropical cyclone, the hurricane center said. The storm had maximum sustained winds of about 35 miles per hour - just 4 mph shy of the threshold for a named tropical storm.

"Although the center of the depression is moving away from the Windward Islands, rain bands trailing the center will be affecting the islands tonight, with heavy rains and wind gusts to tropical storm force in squalls,'' the center said. "All interests in the Windward Islands, as well as in Trinidad and Tobago, should exercise caution until winds and seas subside.''

The storm is expected to continue traveling in a west to west-northwestward direction, with some decrease in forward speed during the next 24 hours.

Earlier Thursday, the storm brought heavy squalls to the Windward Islands. In Barbados, winds of 38 mph from the south were reported at 2:30 p.m. as the island was pelted with rain, the US National Weather Service said. "It appears to be slowly organizing,'' said Jamie Rhome, a forecaster at the Miami center.

Natural gas surged 28.1 cents, or 4 percent, to $7.36 per million British thermal units at 4:15 p.m. in after-hours electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange. Gas climbed 3 percent during today's Nymex floor session on concern the storm would strengthen and head toward the Gulf of Mexico, where about a fifth of all US natural gas is produced.

The storm has overshadowed Tropical Storm Debby, which is gaining strength over the open waters of the eastern Atlantic Ocean though is expected to remain at sea. It is forecast to become a hurricane next week, bringing top winds of more than 74 mph.

Debby had top sustained winds of almost 50 mph as of 5 p.m. Miami time, the hurricane center said. The storm's center was about 1,800 miles east-southeast of Bermuda and it was moving west-northwest at about 20 mph. Tropical storm-force winds extend out up to 60 miles from the center.

While Debby is forecast to become a hurricane August 28, five-day forecasts show it gradually will turn north and then northeast and remain far out at sea.

Including Debby, there have been four named tropical storms since the Atlantic season began June 1, though no hurricanes. Storms are classified as hurricanes when their top sustained winds reach 74 mph.

Debby was the first storm to emerge during what forecasters say is the peak hurricane season, roughly from mid-August through October. Joe Bastardi, a forecaster for AccuWeather in State College, Pennsylvania, said earlier he expects a burst of tropical storms during the next four to five weeks. The season ends November 30.

By this time a year ago, the Atlantic had produced 11 named storms, four of them hurricanes.

The 11th storm, Katrina, became a tropical storm and was named a year ago today. The storm became the costliest ever in the US, causing an estimated $81 billion in damage.

As Hurricane Katrina, it came ashore August 29, 2005, and produced floods that devastated New Orleans, killed more than 1,800 people, and cut most oil and gas production in the Gulf.

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