The fifth tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season,
Ernesto, formed in the Caribbean on Friday and could become a
hurricane threatening US oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of
Mexico on the anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, forecasters
said.
The governments of Haiti and Jamaica issued storm watches, and
the US National Hurricane Center said residents of the wealthy
Cayman Islands and of western Cuba should also be on guard.
Tropical storms do not have powerful winds, but they can bring
heavy rains that pose a danger for undeveloped nations, like Haiti,
with poor building standards.
Energy traders also watched the storm because of the potential
for it to strengthen as it neared the Gulf, where hurricanes
temporarily knocked out much of US crude oil and natural gas
production last year. The Gulf provides about a quarter of US oil
and gas output.
The Miami-based hurricane center forecast that Ernesto would
become a Category 1 hurricane, with 65-knot, or 74-mile-per-hour
(119-km-per-hour), winds, by Monday, a day before the anniversary
of Katrina, which devastated New Orleans and killed about 1,500
people.
The Gulf waters this year are particularly warm. Warm waters are
the fuel hurricanes need to gain power.
"There is a chance that Ernesto could be much stronger than
currently forecast over the Gulf of Mexico," hurricane center
forecaster Jack Beven said in a bulletin on the storm.
By 5 PM (2100 GMT), the center of Ernesto was 300 miles (485 km)
south-southwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and moving toward the
west-northwest at 16 mph (26 kph).
Sustained winds were about 40 mph (65 kph).
The system could drop 3 to 6 inches (7.6 cm-15.24 cm) of rain
over Jamaica and Hispaniola, the island shared by Haiti and the
Dominican Republic, and 1 to 3 inches (2.5 to 5 cm) of rain on
parts of the Netherlands Antilles and Puerto Rico.
In the eastern Atlantic, Tropical Storm Debby was barely
clinging to tropical storm status with 40 mph (64 kph) winds.
The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to
November 30, has been relatively quiet, with five tropical storms
and no hurricanes. But activity usually revs up between mid-August
and late October.
(Chinadaily.com.cn via Reuters August 26, 2006)
