Tropical storm watches and warnings could be posted for some of the islands in the northernmost Leeward Islands as Tropical Storm Chris continues its west-northwesterly track across the region.
As hurricane forecasters debate whether to post watches and warnings on Saturday, satellite photos and reports from a reconnaissance aircraft indicated late Friday that Chris is barely a tropical storm. At 5 p.m. Friday the poorly defined center of the tropical storm was located about 530 miles east of the U.S. Virgin Islands near 17.0 degrees north latitude, 56.8 degrees west longitude.
The storm is moving west-northwest at 13 miles per hour with the motion expected to continue through the weekend. Top winds are at 40 miles per hour and some slow strengthening is expected over the next day or two.
Knight Quality Stations Meteorologist Alan Archer said Friday that most of the weather associated with Tropical Storm Chris should pass north of the region by about 150 miles over the weekend. "Tropical storm conditions could affect some of the northernmost islands of the northeast Caribbean only if a deviation of the center occurs," Archer said.
He noted that although some unraveling of the storm system has taken place Friday afternoon, computer forecast models call for slow strengthening of the tropical storm.
The next complete advisory will be issued by the National Hurricane Center at 11 p.m. Friday.
