Despite the fact that we are approaching the tail end of Hurricane Season, we still have to deal possibly a major hurricane in the Atlantic and Caribbean, early next week. Hurricane Tomas, which was upgraded from a tropical storm earlier today could present major issues next week for those living in the Caribbean.

As of the 2PM AST National Hurricane Center advisory, Hurricane Tomas was located at 13.4°N 61.0°W, which places the center of the storm about 25 miles to the south of St. Lucia, and 10 miles to the northeast of St. Vincent. Tomas is moving in a WNW direction at approximately 75 miles per hour, and has maximum sustained winds around the eye of 75 miles per hour. This makes Tomas a minimal hurricane, however meteorologists at the National Hurricane Center expect the storm to strengthen quite a bit over the next several days.

So where will the hurricane go? Although many of the computer models have yet to agree on a long term path of the storm, most are pointing it in the direction of Jamaica over the next 5 days or so. According to the NHC, Tomas should continue on it’s WNW path for quite some time, before changing to a NW direction at the end of the 5 day forecast. This would mean the storm should be about 150 miles to the south of Puerto Rico by Sunday afternoon, and about 100-150 miles south of the island of Hispaniola by Tuesday morning. Remember that hurricane prediction is not an exact science, so the cone of error is quite large.

Anyone living in the Caribbean, or the Gulf of Mexico should pay close attention to this possibly dangerous hurricane.