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| Tropical Storm Ernesto position and forecast track at 2 am August 28, 2006 (Satellite photo and track: NOAA/NHC) | |
BRIDGETOWN, Barbados, August 28, 2006 - Tropical cyclone Ernesto lost his hurricane strength Sunday after crashing into the mountains in south-western Haiti but still remains a threat to Cuba.
Ernesto, which was a category one hurricane with 75 mile per hour (mph) winds for a few hours, lost his punch after losing a battle with the 2,000-metre mountain range on the Haitian peninsula. He was downgraded to Tropical Storm with winds of 60 mph and a badly weakened centre of circulation. He has since lost further strength and now has maximum sustained winds of 45 mph though specialists at the National Hurricane Centre (NHC) are uncertain as to whether Ernesto could be stronger as the reconnaissance aircraft, investigating the system, was unable to sample the northeast quadrant of the cyclone which was overland during the last flight mission.
Computer models are finally in agreement on the path that Ernesto is likely to take and that is across eastern and central Cuba then the Florida Keys and into southern Florida.
What is uncertain is how the state of the cyclone once it emerges into the Florida Straits following its encounter with Cuba. Chances are, said the NHC that not much might be left of it.
At 8 am Eastern Standard Time the centre of Ernesto was estimated to be near 19.9 north and 75.5 west or about 20 miles south-southeast of Guantanamo, Cuba, travelling northwest near nine mph. Tropical storm force winds extend outwards up to 70 miles. Maximum sustained winds were estimated to be 45 mph and some strengthening is expected before making landfall on Cuba. Estimated central pressure has risen to 1005 millibars.
A hurricane warning is in effect for the eastern Cuban provinces of Santiago de Cuba, Granma, Holguin, Las Tunas, and Camaguey as well as southwestern Haiti while a hurricane watch has been raised for all of the Florida Keys. It is possible that a tropical storm watch may be issued for southern Florida today.
A tropical storm warning is in effect for Jamaica and Great Exuma in the Central Bahamas.
Ernesto, since becoming a tropical cyclone on August 24 has injured four people and damaged roofs in southern Trinidad. It caused flooding in Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines, and Haiti. In Jamaica the National Emergency Operations Centre and all parish emergency operations centres remain activated and emergency shelters prepared to take evacuees should the need arise. There were reports that as many as 40 families in the Berrydale and West Berrydale area of the Rio Grande Valley in the eastern parish of Portland evacuated on their own fearing a repeat of last year's flooding when hurricanes Dennis and Emily passed the island.
Haiti is still mopping up this morning though the flooding was not to the scale that was feared.
Cuba started cleaning up and making general preparations since Saturday. Hundreds of residents in the coastal town of Camaguey were evacuated at daybreak Sunday to emergency shelters.
In the Florida Keys a mandatory evacuation has been enforced.
Though Ernesto awakened the Caribbean after a relatively calm season, he is expected to leave the region generally unscathed.
Elsewhere, Tropical Depression Debby has lost all tropical characteristics and the NHC issued its last advisory on the system spinning over the cool waters of the central Atlantic Sunday.
Nearing the mid-Atlantic is another tropical wave along 34/35 degrees west with a 1010 millibar tropical low along it moving westward at 15 to 20 mph. The well defined low pressure area is at present embedded in an are of dry air and African dust which are retarding at development at this time.
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