Good morning Roatan. If there are two main points this morning, they are: 1. The storm looks like it is headed toward us, probably Wednesday. 2. It is unlikely to be a strong hurricane. Most models are forecasting Tropical Storm Lisa, which would put winds between 39 and 73 mph. This is the US GFS forecast model and there is now good agreement among the various models that this is close to the track that this storm will take.
The storm is now in the eastern Caribbean, about halfway between the Dominican Republic and Venezuela. Though it isn’t yet a tropical depression, there is what clearly looks like it could be a center this morning.
As you can see from the forecast track from the National Hurricane Center, the storm is forecast to come our way, with a slight move to the south at the end. That isn’t good for us and might remind some people of how Hurricane Mitch came south over the islands in 1998, but…
Currently the strongest forecast for this storm is the Canadian, which puts it at 999 millibars of pressure as it moves just to our north.
At 999 millibars, we would be looking at a mid-range tropical storm with peak winds around 50 mph.
Right now the wind forecast for the island is around 28 mph. That is because the storm is currently forecast to go just north of the island, and the south side of a storm is the weaker side. There are two reasons to be careful about this: 1. Forecast models have a history of underestimating storms in the western Caribbean and 2. Storm paths can easily change, and if this storm moved south right over us, we would have higher winds.
Most models have the storm as a tropical storm at 72-96 hours, which is when it is expected to pass by us. A few even have it not quite making it to tropical storm force (39 mph). Let’s hope they are right.
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