… and almost as interesting as his enigmatic sister, Shary. Tomas formed farther south than Hurricanes often do, hung around for a long time as a tropical depression, then blew up to hurricane strength very quickly. Having been declared a hurricane just a few moments ago, it may reach Category Three status as early as Monday, certainly by Tuesday. It will track in it’s current direction, staying south of DR/Haiti and heading pretty much directly towards Jamaica, though it will likely turn north towards Cuba before hitting Rastaland.

I can’t see how Tomas is NOT going to be a serious problem for someone. It will srengthen over the next four days and likely remain a strong hurricane for a while afterwards. From the National Hurricane Center:

A hurricane warning is in effect for…
* St. Vincent and the Grenadines
* St. Lucia
* Martinique

A tropical storm warning is in effect for…
* Barbados
* Dominica
* Trinidad and Tobago
* Grenada

Try to pick out the hurricane in this picture:

Possible but difficult. Click here to see an animation (if it is still on line), then it is easy to see this most unusual hurricane.

Shary is cnfusin the weather experts ath the HPC. words like “conundrum” and “system not handling this well” and “normally … would not require this much discussion” and “a change … does complicate matters” and “it is hard to discount” and a note that this hurricane would never have been detected were it not for the most modern of techniques.

Shary will be absorbed by a cold front by the end of the day Monday. Or so they say.