Tropical Depression for the Caribbean
Looks like as though the hurricane season is starting to swing into action :(
Model forecast from wunderground
http://www.wunderground.com/data/ima...0799_model.gif
1st Aug = NEW YORK (Reuters) - With Tropical Storm Chantal spinning out in the North Atlantic, a tropical depression may form over the next couple of days that could enter the Caribbean, the National Hurricane Center said on Wednesday.
In a 5:30 a.m. EDT outlook, the NHC said an area of low pressure associated with a tropical wave continued to move westward at about 15 miles per hour.
It is centered a couple hundred miles east of the Windward Islands, which include Barbados, Martinique, St. Lucia, St. Vincent and the Grenadines, Grenada, and Trinidad and Tobago.
All weather models predict the system will cross the Windward Islands and move into the Caribbean south of Haiti and Cuba over the next week or so.
Three of the weather models, however, show the storm heading toward Belize, Honduras and Nicaragua, while another model shows the storm heading toward the Yucatan Peninsula in Mexico.
The energy market watches for tropical storms because they can disrupt U.S. oil and natural gas production and refining if they enter the Gulf of Mexico.
Commodities traders also track tropical storms because they can damage crops in Florida and along the Gulf Coast.
The NHC noted that, even if a storm does not develop, the system will likely bring a few squalls to the Windward Islands over the next day or so.
