A tropical-storm watch was issued on Friday in the United States for central Louisiana to the Florida Panhandle, where residents are still recovering from last year’s hurricanes.
Arlene, the Atlantic hurricane season’s first named tropical storm, was centred about 16,09km south-southeast of the western tip of Cuba at 9am GMT. It was moving north about 12,8kph, and could cross near or over western Cuba as it moved into the Gulf of Mexico early on Friday, forecasters said.
Wind and rain extended 225km to the north and east from the storm’s centre.
Arlene had maximum sustained winds of 72kph. The storm could drop as much as 13cm to 25cm of rain, and possibly cause flooding in western Cuba and tornados in south-west Florida and the Florida Keys, meteorologists said.
”This is going to be a major rainfall event before and ahead of the storm,” said Trisha Wallace, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Centre in Miami.
The Cuban government issued a tropical-storm warning for the western province of Pinar del Rio to the capital, Havana. A tropical-storm warning was also in effect for the Dry Tortugas, a cluster of islands about 112,65km west of Key West that comprise a US national park. Other than park personnel, there are no permanent residents.
The storm is not expected to develop into a hurricane before making landfall, Wallace said.
Hurricane season began on June 1 and ends on November 30. Last season, Florida was struck by hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan and Jeanne; between them, the four storms damaged one out of every five homes in the state. The storms caused about 130 deaths in the US and are blamed for $22-billion in insured damage. — Sapa-AP