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Major Hurricane Earl affecting the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico

Posted by Andy Johnson under Daily updates

Earl became a major Category 3 hurricane at 11:00 AM EDT Monday, August 30,2010. Nearly ideal conditions exist for further strengthening. There is almost no shear and water temperatures are close to record high values. Officially, the National Hurricane Center (NHC)  is forecasting Earl to become a Category 4 storm, but a Category 5 is not out of the question. The official NHC forecast has the center of Earl passing near the eastern seaboard of the U.S. between Wednesday and Friday. Any deviation in path to the west or east could  have great impacts along the coast. If the center stays far enough out to sea to the east, the impacts will be minimal. If the eye makes landfall along the east coast, the consequences are more dire. It is too early to say at this point, the exact path. Florida is not in the cone of danger but the area from North Carolina to Maine is in the cone of danger.

This morning the center of the eyewall has been passing just north of the the Leeward Islands. The northernmost Leeward Island is Anguilla and Earl passed  just to the north of Anguilla at 9 AM EDT. Saint Martin/St.Maarten is the next island just south of Anguilla made up of a French and a Dutch side. The Princess Juliana International Airport in the Dutch part of the island of Sint Maarten. The Dutch side of the island is on the south side which was further away from the center of Earl than the northern French side of the island. The population of the island is about 75,000. Winds gusts were recorded at 68 MPH at 8AM EDT at the Princess Juliana Airport more than an hour before the point of closest approach. It is possible that winds gusted to hurricane force in Anguilla since Anguilla was closer to the center of the eye. Winds may have gusted to hurricane force also on the French side of the island (Saint-Martin) since it was closer to Earl than the Dutch side.

At 1:57 PM EDT on Monday, the southern eyewall was passing near Anegada, which is the northernmost British Virgin Island. Unlike most of the other Leeward and Virgin Island, Anegada is a fairly flat atoll. The other islands have higher elevations since they are volcanic. The population of Anegada is only about 200 so the worst part of Earl is affecting the island with the least population in the region.

In the Skytower OMNI image below, the outer bands of Earl are reaching St. Croix, where winds have gusted to 39 MPH but the central core of hurricane force winds are in the eyewall around the circular center clearly visible in the radar image.

The enhance satellite image below shows magenta colored areas representing the strongest convection mostly wrapped in the northern semicircle. This means that the strongest winds are likely to the north of the islands. At 12:48 PM EDT Monday there was a large feeder band with very heavy convection (magenta) that was headed for the north coast of  Puerto Rico.

The St. Croix harbor cam picture we are carrying on our website is located in Christiansted located on the north central coast of St. Croix. St. Croix is protected by barrier reefs which cuts down on wave action somewhat. Tides are running above normal but there is not a lot of wave action in the protected harbor due to the reef. The camera is facing north.

The warning map as of 1PM EDT Monday is shown below. All warnings forAntigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, St. Kitts and Nevis were dropped and these islands did not have as much effect from Earl since they were further south. For Monday afternoon and evening the greatest threat will be to the northern U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Puerto, Culebra and Vieques, especially the northern facing coasts of these islands. A tropical storm warning and hurricane watch is in effect for Puerto Rico but may be upgraded to a warning later today. A hurricane warning is effect for Puerto Rican islands of Culebra and Vieques, which are the islands west of St. Thomas.

The Puerto Rican web camera image we are carrying on our web site shown below at about 2:00 PM EDT is in Luquillo, Puerto Rico. Luquillo is on the northeast coast. Large waves can be seen breaking on the beach there. Compare the Luquillo beach area to the protected harbor at Christiansted, St. Croix. 

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 The vortex message from the Air Force reconnaissance flight into Earl is shown below along with the entire flight path. At 11:27 AM EDT on Monday, they reported surface winds of 124.3 MPH with flight level winds of 133.5 MPH. The eye was circular but open in the southwest quadrant.

The McIDAS image shown below was taken at 8:0o AM EDT Monday shortly before the closest point of approach to Anguilla. The northern eyewall appears stronger in this image than the southern edge which was closer to Anguilla. Fortunately, then Anguilla did not receive the strongest part of the storm . The population of Anguilla is about 13,500.

The basin-wide satellite image below shows that Danielle has moved well into the mid-latitudes and does not have the same shape and structure of a tropical system such as Earl (shown near the center of the image). Danielle should become extratropical over the next 24 hours.

Invest 97L could still become a depression or tropical storm over the next few days. Invest 97L is moving west at 20 MPH. Earl is moving WNW at a slower speed of 15 MPH. Invest 97L is “gaining” on Earl and since Earl will be the stronger of the two systems, Earl will likely inhibit any rapid strengthening of Invest 97L especially as 97L gets closer to Earl. It is too early to say what there final interaction will be.  There is still yet another tropical wave with a potential to become a depression that is near the Cape Verde Island. It emerged off of Africa south of where Danielle, Earl and Invest 97L did.