Miami (USA), September 26 (EFE). – Weakened Tropical Storm Philippe continues to blow maximum winds of 75 kilometers per hour (km/h) this Tuesday and will continue to gradually lose strength in the coming days as it moves westward across the U.S. north of the Lesser Antilles, the reports US National Hurricane Center (NHC).
In its latest bulletin, the NHC indicates that the center of Philippe, a system that does not currently pose a threat to populated areas, is located 1,360 kilometers east of the northern Leeward Islands (Lesser Antilles) and moving 22 km to the west /H.
There are no coastal tropical storm warnings or warnings, the NHC notes.
The system is expected to turn west-northwest in the coming days, with Philippe not expected to become a hurricane. On the contrary, experts believe that there will be a “gradual weakening” in the coming days.
Philippe emerged last Saturday, the same day that Tropical Storm Ophelia made landfall in North Carolina on the East Coast of the United States, bringing strong winds and rain and leaving more than 70,000 subscribers without power.
Ophelia has since dissipated, but the NHC is now monitoring a developing system: a low pressure area located several hundred miles west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands that is producing disorganized showers and thunderstorms.
Environmental conditions are expected to favor its development, allowing it to become a tropical depression in the coming days as it moves west-northwest across the Atlantic.
The probability of it occurring in the next seven days is very high (90%).
In an update released last August, the U.S. Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) predicted an “above average” Atlantic hurricane season, with the formation of 14 to 21 tropical storms, of which between 6 and 11 would be hurricanes.
Six hurricanes have formed in the current season, which ends Nov. 30, and one of them, Lee, reached Category 5, the maximum on the Saffir-Simpson intensity scale. EFE
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