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Hurricane Tammy formed Friday morning as it approached the islands in the far eastern Caribbean and will be passing near or over the islands through Saturday.
As of 8 p.m. Friday, Tammy had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph, just over the hurricane threshold of 74 mph, with its hurricane-force-wings extending out 25 miles from its center.
The storm was located 90 miles east of Martinique and 170 miles southeast of Guadeloupe, traveling west-northwest at 7 mph. Tammy was expected to turn northwest Friday night before moving north-northwest and north through Sunday night, the hurricane center said.
Tammy was forecast to pass over some of the islands in the eastern Caribbean Friday night and into Saturday night before turning north, away from land, in the Atlantic Ocean on Sunday.
Tammy should gradually strengthen over the next couple of days while it passes the Leeward Islands. The National Hurricane Center has Tammy’s maximum wind speeds reaching 90 mph on Sunday.
“After Tammy moves north of the Leeward Islands, increasing vertical wind shear is likely to initiate weakening as Tammy moves northward,” forecasters said late Friday afternoon.
A hurricane warning is in effect for Guadeloupe, Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, and St. Kitts and Nevis, and a hurricane watch is in effect for Dominica, Anguilla, St. Maarten, St. Martin and St. Barthelemy.
Large and potentially dangerous swells from Tammy will continue affecting the islands over the next few days, the hurricane center said.
Heavy rains were expected to start in the Leeward and Windward Islands on Friday, then the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico during the weekend.
Rainfall totals could reach 4 to 8 inches, with maximum amounts of 12 inches in the islands of the eastern Caribbean, with rain of 1 to 2 inches with maximum amounts of 4 inches in the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and eastern Puerto Rico. Mudslides and isolated flash and urban flooding are possible.
Storm surge could raise water levels up to 1 to 3 feet above normal tide levels near where Tammy’s center passes over the Leeward Islands and could create coastal flooding, the hurricane center said.
Forecasters are also watching for potential development of a disturbance in the southwestern Caribbean. The system could form by the weekend or early next week, but it is expected to move over Central America on Monday or Tuesday and will not develop any further, the hurricane center said.
As of 8 p.m. Friday, it has a 20% chance of developing in the next seven days.
So far this season in the Atlantic, there have been 19 named storms, seven of which were hurricanes. Of those, three were major hurricanes, meaning Category 3 or above.
Those were Hurricane Lee, a rare Category 5; Hurricane Franklin, a Category 4; and Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend region at Category 3 strength on Aug. 30.
The remaining storm names for 2023 are Vince and Whitney. If all those names end up being used this season, the National Hurricane Center would turn to the supplemental list of names from the World Meteorological Association. In previous years, the Greek alphabet was used for additional storm names — which had only happened twice before — during the record-shattering hurricane seasons in 2005 and 2020.
Large Machining Center Hurricane season officially runs through Nov. 30.