As reported by news-press.com.
The National Hurricane Center reports that at 5 a.m. the poorly defined center of Tropical Storm Erika was estimated near latitude 17 north and longitude 59 west or about 280 miles east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands.
Erika has been moving generally westward near 5 mph and a west-northwestward motion at a slightly faster forward speed is expected over the next day or two.
The forecast track has the center passing near or over the northern Leeward Islands during the next day or so.
Maximum sustained winds are near 50 mph with higher gusts. Some strengthening is possible during the next 24 hours.
Tropical storm force winds extend outward up to 120 miles mainly to the northeast of the center.
Also, thunderstorms associated with a tropical wave near the Cape Verde Islands have decreased.
Development, if any, of this system is expected to be slow to occur as it moves toward the west or west-northwest at 10 to 15 mph.
There is a less than 30 percent chance of this system becoming a tropical storm during the next 48 hours.
Hurricane Jimena
LOS CABOS, Mexico — Hurricane Jimena weakened to a Category 2 storm as it bore down on the coast of Mexico’s Baja California peninsula.
By early today, Jimena’s maximum sustained winds had decreased to near 105 mph (165 kph) and the National Hurricane Center in Miami said it was expected to weaken further.
Jimena’s change in status came after the hurricane brushed passed the resort towns at the southern tip of the Baja California on Tuesday, lashing them with driving rain and winds.
Despite the pummeling by the fringes of the then-Category 3 hurricane, the Mexican peninsula’s biggest resort, Los Cabos, appeared to be escaping major damage beyond power outages and mud-choked roads.
Dozens of people evacuated from the Los Congrejos shantytown huddled in darkened rooms at a school after electricity failed during the storm. Trying to calm squalling babies and ignore hunger from having little food, the evacuees waited for dawn, and a chance to look at what the hurricane did to their homes made of plastic sheeting, wood and tar paper.
