Tropical Storm Fay Forms Over Dominican Republic

August 15, 2008

MELBOURNE, FL (FLORIDA TODAY) - Forecasters at the National Hurricane Center say Tropical Storm Fay has formed over the Dominican Republic.

The center of the storm is located about 35 miles east of Santo Domingo as of 5 p.m.

The storm has maximum sustained winds of about 40 mph with higher gusts and is moving west at about 14 mph. Forecasters are expecting little change in the storm's strength in the next 24 hours.

The Dominican government has issued a tropical storm warning for the country's entire north coast and and parts of the south coast.

Tropical storm warnings also have been issued by Haiti for its north coast and by Cuba for the provinces of Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba and Granma.

This system is expected to produce heavy rainfall and gusty winds over the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico and Hispaniola today and tonight and then over eastern Cuba, the Turks and Caicos and the southeastern Bahamas on Saturday.

"The National Hurricane Center indicates that this system does not have a well-enough defined center of circulation to be considered a tropical depression. Environmental conditions are favorable for development, and I expect the National Hurricane Center to classify this system a tropical depression at some point today or at the very latest on Saturday," according to Rob Lightbown of Crown Weather Services (www.crownweather.com) in his tropical weather discussion blog.

A tropical depression has maximum sustained winds of up to 38 mph. A tropical storm's sustained winds range from 39 mph to 73 mph.

"All indications are this morning that this system is very, very close to being classified as a tropical depression" Lightbown said. "In fact, I would not at all be surprised to see reconnaissance aircraft to find a tropical storm when they investigate this afternoon."

"There is no closed circulation yet, but a depression could form any time," said Dennis Feltgen, a National Hurricane Center spokesman in an interview with FLORIDA TODAY news partner WKMG Local 6 News. "The upper-level winds are becoming more favorable for development."

A wind shear had kept the system from developing during the last two days, but "that inhibitor is going away," Feltgen said. If the system becomes a tropical storm, it would be named Tropical Storm Fay.

Lightbown said the system will interact with the land mass of Hispaniola later today and much of Saturday.

"It will be interesting to see how this affects this system down the road. What is interesting is that even though (several tracking) models track this system over the mountainous parts of northern Hispaniola, it still ramps the storm up to a very strong hurricane once it is in the Bahamas."

The current tracking models offer a variety of scenarios. While most trackers agree the storm will be in the southeastern Bahamas by Sunday night, they disagree on what direction the storm may take after that.

According to Lightbown, some of the scenarios suggest the storm could stall over the northwestern Bahamas by Tuesday and Wednesday or move steadily to the north-northwest for the next five days, placing it about 100 to 150 miles east of Jacksonville.

"One model even forecasts it to track into the northwestern Bahamas early next week and stall there for 36 hours or so before tracking back to the west and tracking over South Florida on Wednesday night and Thursday morning before tracking into the Gulf of Mexico and tracking west-northwest across the entire Gulf of Mexico before coming ashore on the central Texas coast on August 28, 13 days from now," he said.

"One thing that is very interesting to note is that (several tracking) models keep this system fairly disorganized and weak over the next 24 to 36 hours, but once it moves away from the land influences of Hispaniola and Cuba it is forecast by the intensity guidance to really ramp up in strength."

Feltgen of the NHC said "it is too early to say" whether the system will aim at Florida.

Forecaster Matt Bragaw of the National Weather Service in Melbourne said the system could end up in the Gulf of Mexico or on the East Coast. "The models of possible paths are a bit divergent right now," he said.

Meanwhile, officials at the state Division of Emergency Management are making plans to go on a higher state of alert this weekend, according to division spokeswoman Blair Heusden.

The state Emergency Operations Center could switch to a level 2 activation on Sunday or Monday, she said. That means more operations and planning staff will be called in to monitor the system. The center is always on a level 3 alert. The highest level, Level 1, calls for 24-hour staffing.