On its present track, the storm would likely pass just east of The Bahamas as a category one hurricane on Saturday afternoon.
At 5pm, Florence was 960 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands and was moving at 12 miles per hour. Its tropical force winds extended 115 miles from its centre.
“Category one is a minimal hurricane, so it would just be minimal force winds,” said forecaster Wayne Neely, “but you should never take hurricanes lightly. Weﾒre monitoring this.”
Florence comes days after Ernesto, which at one point became a hurricane.
Mr. Neely described the 2006 Atlantic Hurricane Season as “quite quiet” and “unexpected.”
“We expected a much busier hurricane season,” he said. “One thing we didnﾒt anticipate is the present strong upper level shear.
“There are two components for a hurricane to form. One is you must have warm waters for hurricanes to get energy, and light winds in the upper atmosphere, but what has happened is the winds have become a bit stronger than expected. Most forecasters didnﾒt expect this. What [those strong winds are] doing is tearing apart storms before theyﾒre able to form into hurricanes.”
He explained that the winds were light last year, which was a record-setting season with 28 named storms and 15 hurricanes.
Last month, the National Hurricane Centre in the United States lowered its storms forecast to between 12 and15 named storms and seven to nine hurricanes.
The Bahama Journal
