Tropical Storm Chantal barrelled toward the Lesser Antilles islands in the Caribbean Sea on Tuesday on its way to the Dominican Republic and Haiti, the US National Hurricane Center reported.
As of o600 GMT Chantal was located about 250 kilometers (155 miles) east of Barbados packing maximum sustained winds of 85 kilometers (50 miles) per hour, the NHC said.
The storm is moving in a northwesterly direction at 43 kilometers per hour (26 mph).
Chantal’s center will sweep through the Lesser Antilles later Tuesday morning and into the eastern Caribbean, and approach the Dominican Republic on Wednesday, the hurricane center said.
Besides Puerto Rico and the southern coast of the Dominican Republic, tropical storm warnings are in effect for the French islands of Martinique and Guadeloupe, as well as for Barbados, Dominica and Santa Lucia, the NHC said.
Chantal is expected to strengthen during the next 48 hours.
It is also expected to dump two to four inches of rain over the Leeward and Windward Islands, Puerto Rico and the US Virgin Islands and parts of the Dominican Republic and Haiti, with maximum amounts of six inches possible, the NHC said.
Poverty-stricken Haiti, which is still recovering from a devastating earthquake in January 2010, is especially prone to landslides triggered by heavy rain.
Tropical Storm Chantal heads towards the Caribbean
