Tropical Storm Gabrielle

Tropical Storm Gabrielle Bringing Heavy Rain to Puerto Rico.

 

Gabrielle continues to slowly move off to the northwest early Thursday morning in the northeast Caribbean Sea, with its center less than 50 miles to the south of Ponce, Puerto Rico. This slow northwest movement will continue the rest of today through tonight and Friday, likely taking the center of the storm through the Mona Passage between Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic.

The combination of land interaction, southwesterly wind shear and a tropical wave just to the northeast of Gabrielle should keep the system from strengthening significantly in the next 24 to 48 hours. Beyond that timeframe, the system will pull northward away from the Dominican Republic and should have an opportunity to strengthen somewhat. However, shear will continue to affect the storm through the weekend and we feel that will keep it from becoming anything more than a tropical storm.

By early next week, the movement of Gabrielle becomes more uncertain. We feel an upper-level trough moving off the East Coast of the United States will pick Gabrielle up in its flow and steer it northeastward, perhaps not all that far from Bermuda. However, the connection between Gabrielle and the trough could be missed, perhaps causing the storm to become nearly stationary or even drift westward towards the Southeast Coast of the United States. Regardless, over the next several days, any impact on the southeastern United States from Gabrielle should be limited to rough surf and higher waves.

Current satellite imagery shows a robust area of thunderstorms in association with Gabrielle that have really expanded in the last 4-6 hours. These thunderstorms are located mainly to the east of the low-level center and have been pounding the Virgin Islands and eastern half of Puerto Rico with heavy rainfall thus far early Thursday morning. Eventually, the heavy rain will shift westward later today into tonight to affect the western half of Puerto Rico and eventually eastern parts of the Dominican Republic as well.

In the course of the next 24 hours, a general 1-4 inches of additional rainfall can cause flash-flooding across Puerto Rico and eastern Hispaniola. Amounts in excess of 10 inches can fall across the mountainous interior of Puerto Rico, causing life-threatening flash flooding and mudslides. Wind gusts around 40 mph near the coast of Puerto Rico today may also cause sporadic power outages.

Aside from Gabrielle, we are monitoring several other areas across the Atlantic Basin for potential development. The first is a cluster of thunderstorms located to the northeast of Gabrielle northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. Due to the disorganization of this feature and its proximity to Gabrielle, any further development of this feature is unlikely. We are also watching another area of concern over the southwest Gulf of Mexico in the Bay of Campeche. With lower than normal surface pressures in this area combined with very warm waters, there is potential for further development with this feature through the weekend.

All interests in the southern Gulf of Mexico should closely monitor this area over the next few days and check back often with AccuWeather.com for further updates. Finally, a cluster of thunderstorms over western Africa associated with a tropical wave will emerge into the open waters of the far eastern Atlantic over the next couple of days. There is some potential for this wave to develop early next week as it moves away from the African coast.