MIAMI, Aug. 21 (UPI) — Hurricane Danny strengthened overnight to a Category 2 hurricane with winds of 105 mph as it heads toward the Leeward Islands in the eastern Caribbean.
The storm’s eye has become better defined as it has ingested low level moist air to protect itself from dry air that was earlier predicted to weaken it. Forecasters still say Danny will weaken to a tropical storm, moving up that development to its first landfall in the Leeward Islands on Monday. Strong upper-level wind shear in the Caribbean and more dry air are expected to be the source of the weakening.
Danny is projected to track over the northern Leeward Islands as a tropical storm and then Puerto Rico on Tuesday and Hispaniola on Wednesday at the end of the forecast period, remaining a tropical storm with 45 mph winds. Danny would then enter warm open waters of the Atlantic south of the Bahamas, where it could find more favorable conditions with reduced wind shear and less dry air.
Danny’s small size could pose a problem for it as it passes over mountains in Puerto Rico and Hispaniola. It’s a fraction of the size of Typhoon Atsani, a powerful storm that currently poses no threat to land in the Pacific.
A NOAA research plane will investigate Danny Friday afternoon and an Air Force reconnaissance plane will visit the storm on Saturday, each providing new data to better predict Danny’s future. A consensus of long-range models pushes the storm into the Bahamas.
In the Pacific, forecasters are keeping an eye on a developing system – labelled Invest 93C for now — southwest of Baja California that could affect Hawaii. It’s given a 20 percent chance of becoming an organized storm in 48 hours, 60 percent in 5 days.
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