Shutterstock
Tropical Storm Dorian, which is moving at a rapid clip through the Caribbean, will contact Puerto Rico on Wednesday, as well as the Virgin Islands. At present, the storm doesn’t seem to have nearly as much destructive power as Hurricane Maria did in 2017.
This is some small comfort for the tens of thousands of Puerto Ricans who have still not yet recovered from the last hurricane to hit their homes.
At the time of this writing, Dorian is a tropical storm. However, it is possible that it will have strengthened to a full-blown hurricane by the time that it hits the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico. Both regions have issued tropical storm warnings and hurricane watches.
A warning means that tropical storm conditions will be there in the next 36 hours, while a watch means that hurricane conditions could be there if certain conditions are met.
Just because it’s “only” a tropical storm doesn’t mean that Dorian isn’t dangerous. Today, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico will be faced with wind speeds up to 70 mph, several inches of rainfall and very high ocean tides.
These are the correct conditions for mudslides, floods and serious structural damage to smaller buildings. Power outages from these conditions can also be deadly for some residents, as can the chaos brought on by tropical storm conditions that make moving away from hazards like flooding so dangerous.
After the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico, the storm is expected to push north-northeast towards the Bahamas and Florida. Again, it’s possible that the warm water ahead of the storm fuels it into becoming a full-fledged hurricane. Thankfully for the cities in the storm’s projected path, dry air and wind shear over the Atlantic could help to slow and weaken Dorian before it makes landfall.
However, it’s also worth noting that Dorian is a strange storm and is hard to forecast. Due to its small size, its path can be altered somewhat quickly by strong winds. As such, predicting where, exactly, it’ll make landfall in the US is difficult. The storm could even miss the Bahamas altogether, though that currently seems unlikely.
