Hurricane Elsa Update: Hispaniola, Cuba, Florida Still Targets

Satellite view of Hurricane Elsa Friday after in trashed
Barbabos. Image from NOAA.

Early Season Hurricane Elsa was continuing its march through the Caribbean Sea this morning, having trashed Barbados and setting its sights on Hispaniola, Cuba and Florida. 

Surprising to me, anyway, given its location, this was the first hurricane in more than 60 years to strike Barbados. Numerous homes there collapsed or lost their roofs, and there was widespread additional damage there and on nearby St. Lucia. So far, no deaths have been reported. 

Elsa's forward motion is around 30 mph, which is awfully fast for a hurricane. Top winds with the storm were 75 mph, making it barely a hurricane. It's a little less powerful than yesterday, when top winds were 85 mph.

Elsa's forward speed is forecast to slow down somewhat today and tomorrow. Elsa should be near the southern coast of Hispaniola tonight, and be affecting Jamaica and Cuba tomorrow. By Monday and Tuesday, South Florida should be feeling the effects of Elsa. 

There's still a lot of questions as to how strong Elsa will be in the coming days. If it interacts a lot with the mountains of Hispaniola and Cuba, it could weak a lot.  If it stays in the open water south of those islands for awhile, it could maintain most of its strength.

It'll weaken heading north over Cuba, but how much is the question. And will Elsa be able to restrengthen a bit once it emerges into the water south of the Florida Keys?

And what about Florida?  We don't know if Elsa will target the area around Miami, or head west up toward Tampa, or plow right into central Florida.  In any event, Floridians ought to be preparing for some coastal storm surges and especially inland flooding.

It's been wet in much of Florida lately and the ground in many spots is pretty saturated. If Elsa dumps some heavy rain around there, we could be looking at plenty of floods. We'll see.

Beyond Florida, Elsa will move toward the northeast, but it's still way too soon to have a good handle on whether it will affect New England, and if so, how.