Tropical Storm Omar wants to imitate Hurricane Lenny of 1999 and very well could. The difference this time is that Omar is still only a tropical storm while Lenny had become a hurricane moving West when it decided to turn around and head East. This caught many people off guard as they thought the storm had passed them.

Currently Omar is packing 40 knot winds and pushing somewhat South. But very soon, a trough is going to pick him up and draw him North and West. Puerto Rico is saturated from the long visit it had with Ike last month. The Virgin Islands are volcanic and can’t hold much rain. So flooding is currently the paramount concern. Depending on when the storm strengthens and which passage it takes will determine the fate of this island paradise. It could be just a lot of rain and moderate winds – or it could form into a Category 1 hurricane directly over the islands.

I’m somewhat encouraged to see all of this tropical action right now with our first planned trip of the season to the BVI less than a month away, I’m hoping it will work itself out over the next couple of weeks. 

There are some excellent weather prognosticators, both amateur and professional to help us keep track of all this. But my best source is the great web cam at Saba Rock (as long as there is electrickity to power it !

UPDATE: 3 hours later, hurricane hunter aircraft has measured barometric pressure at 986, which is a significant drop. they measured top winds at 70mph which fixes it at near hurricane strength and it is beginning to form an eyewall. It is still drifting southeast but is expected to begin a march to the Northeast sometime around midnight when it interacts with a trough. The windshear is low enough to allow further intensification and forecasters now predict a Category 2 with the possibility of a Category 3 landfall somewhere in the vicinity of the Virgin Islands on Wednesday (10/15) evening.

 

Tags: bvi, flotilla, hurricane, islands, omar, Sailing, SailTime, storm, tropical, virgin, weather

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