Although Hurricane season lasts until November 30th, we usually don’t see an incredible amount of activity this late in the season. A season in which we have had 19 named storms, making it one of the top 5 most active season’s in history, we also have luckily only seen a few minor impacts to the United States. The US may luck out again. Hurricane Shary is currently moving away from the country, while Tropical Storm Tomas may recurve before striking the US.

Tropical Storm Tomas has the ingredients to become a powerful major hurricane over the next few days. Currently Tomas is situated at 13.1N 60.1W, which puts it about 70 miles to the southeast of St. Lucia. It is a strong tropical storm with winds of 70 miles per hour, and is moving in a WNW direction at approximately 15 miles per hour. The long term projected path of Tomas will take it into the Caribbean sea. After that point, models are not quite sure. Some take it north through Cuba or Hispaniola, while others have it missing the trof, and continuing West for some time. Either way the National Hurricane Center predicts the storm to become a major hurricane by Wednesday morning.

Hurricane Shary, on the other hand, is not really a threat to anyone. Although the storm was upgraded to a hurricane, the NHC expects it to continue moving northeast, and eventually die out over the open Atlantic Ocean. Clearly Tomas is the storm which could impact civilization, and possibly in a terrible way. All interests in the Caribbean, and even the Gulf of Mexico need to pay close attention to the ultimate path that Tomas takes over the coming week.