As the 2023 Atlantic Hurricane season heads toward its peak, the Saint Lucia Meteorological Services Director has noted that things are heating up.
“The Atlantic is heating up. We’re getting to the peak of the season which is in September and we have at least five systems,” Andre Joyeux said Sunday.
He spoke as a strong tropical wave affected the Lesser Antilles from the previous day with scattered showers, isolated thunderstorms, gusty winds, and the Met Office issued advisories encouraging people in low-lying flood-prone areas to take precautions.
The wave was one of several the Met Office had been monitoring as Tropical Storm Emily and Depression Number Six formed.
“These two systems are a little North of us,” Joyeux explained, adding that forecasters expect them to continue North and not affect the Lesser Antilles.
The Meteorological Services Director also observed that one area of interest came off the African Coast.
But the projected path is also North of the Islands.
Another system is off the coast of the United States, and forecasters expect it to cause showers and thunderstorms over Florida.
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists upgraded their prediction for the 2023 Atlantic Hurricane Season earlier this month.
Forecasters upped the likelihood of an above-normal season to sixty percent.
The outlook in May this year had predicted thirty percent.
The latest upgrade calls for fourteen to twenty-one named storms packing winds of thirty-nine miles per hour or more.
According to NOAA, six to eleven predicted storms could become hurricanes with winds of seventy-four miles per hour or more.
It also said two to five could become major hurricanes.
“Blessed is the man who trust in the LORD, whose confidence is in him.
He will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its root by the stream.
It does not fear when the heat comes ;its leaves are always green.
It has no worries in the year of drought and never fails to bear fruit”.