Forecasters expect Hurricane Lee to intensify rapidly into a powerful Category 5 hurricane by the weekend and could bring impacts from the Caribbean to the United States.
Lee became a Category One hurricane Wednesday afternoon.
According to the National Hurricane Centre, swells will likely cause life-threatening surf and rip currents across portions of the Lesser Antilles late this week.
On Wednesday afternoon, Lee was still traveling west-northwest at 14 mph over the southern Atlantic Ocean.
Its maximum sustained winds were 75 mph, and its center was about 1,130 miles east of the northern Leewards.
Lee is the 12th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30
The Saint Lucia Meteorological Services, in its 6:00 pm forecast Wednesday, advised interests in the northern Leeward Islands that they should monitor Lee’s progress.
In addition, forecaster Glenn Antoine wrote that a strong tropical wave over the far eastern Tropical Atlantic was moving westward near 15 mph or 24 km/h.
Antoine wrote in the forecast that the wave has a medium chance of tropical cyclone formation during the next seven days.
