Tropical Storm Laura developed east of the northern Leeward Islands on Friday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Laura was located at latitude 17.0\u00b0N and longitude 60.2\u00b0W which put it about 210 miles (335 km) east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands.\u00a0 Laura was moving toward the west at 18 m.p.h. (30 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 60 m.p.h. (95 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1007 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Warnings were in effect for Saba, St. Eustatius, St. Maarten, Antigua, Barbuda, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, the British Virgin Islands, the U. S, Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Vieques, and Culebra.<\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n Tropical Storm Watches were in effect for the portion of the north coast of Hispaniola from Le Mole St. Nicholas, Haiti to Cabron, Dominican Republic and for the Turks and Caicos, the Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay, the Inaguas, and the Ragged Islands.<\/span><\/p>\n A NOAA plane found winds to tropical storm force in former Tropical Depression Thirteen on Friday morning and the National Hurricane Center upgraded the system to Tropical Storm Laura.\u00a0 Even though the plane found winds to tropical storm force, the circulation around Tropical Storm Laura was not well organized. There were several clusters of thunderstorms in the northern half of the circulation, but there were fewer thunderstorms in the southern half of Laura.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extended out about 150 miles (240 km) on the northern side of the tropical storm.\u00a0 The winds in the southern half of the circulation were blowing at less than tropical storm force.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Laura will move through an environment favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Laura will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through a region where the upper level winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 The lack of organization of the circulation around Laura will limit how quickly the tropical storm can intensify.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Laura is likely to get stronger during the next 24 hours.<\/p>\n Tropical Storm Laura will move south of a subtropical high pressure system over the North Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high will steer Laura toward the west-northwest during the next several days.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Tropical Storm Laura will move across the northern Leeward Islands later today.\u00a0 Laura could reach Puerto Rico by Saturday.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Laura will bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to the islands when it passes over them.<\/p>\n Elsewhere, Tropical Depression Fourteen was getting more organized over the northwestern Caribbean Sea.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Depression Fourteen was located at latitude 16.6\u00b0N and longitude 84.1\u00b0W which put it about 325 miles (525 km) southeast of Cozumel, Mexico.\u00a0 The depression was moving toward the northwest at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 35 m.p.h. (55 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 45 m.p.h. (75 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 1008 mb.<\/p>\n A Hurricane Watch was in effect for the portion of the coast from Punta Herrero to Cancun, Mexico.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect for the Bay Islands, Honduras and from Punta Herrero to Cancun, Mexico.\u00a0 <\/span><\/strong>A Tropical Storm Watch was in effect for the portion of the coast from Cancun to Dzilam, Mexico.<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Tropical Storm Laura developed east of the northern Leeward Islands on Friday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 p.m. EDT on Friday the center of Tropical Storm Laura was located at latitude 17.0\u00b0N and longitude 60.2\u00b0W which put it about 210 miles (335 km) east-southeast of the northern Leeward Islands.\u00a0 Laura was moving toward the west at 18 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[528,540,527,541,1303,270,26,2160,140,24,22,2159,143],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=10125"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10126,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10125\/revisions\/10126"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=10125"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=10125"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=10125"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}