Thursday, September 03, 2009

Tropical Storm Erika - a troubled woman

From my post on StormCarib.com yesterday:


Well after some chores i loaded up my windsurfing gear and expected some
action on the north shore. Not only didn't we get enough winds but I got
sunburned while i waited for something to happen. I don't think we had
more than 18 knots for the whole day and still Erika which is supposed
to be just to our SSW isn't saying much. What a lovely sunset and moon
rise though with a wild array of colours almost looking like the colour
IR sat map that shows the disorganised storm teasing us. To see a bright
moon inside some brighter pink high cloud was quite something 20 minutes
ago. I'm not sure we will get any more shows of light later on. The radar shows DA about to get some and some patchy rains scattered east and south east of us, but this troubled girl looks like she's about to call it a day. I doubt Erika will be a storm
for much longer. I would hope we get at least one thunderstorm out of her....but with her it's anyone's guess.

Last night the lightning was quite a show in the east. Since then we finally
got some rain in Jolly about 3 am and it's been raingin on and off since
then. A
few strong wind gusts in the squalls but mostly light. The center of
the very
weak tropical storm is just off our south west shore and according
to the radar
seen here which shows actual rainfall, there is plenty more
rain to come.

To me it looks like the eye of the storm is pretty much over Antigua right now, but the storm is so weak that it doesn't count for much apart from plenty of rain. It's a day for TV, the computer, tea and relaxin'. I think some areas may see some flooding today if it gets heavy which is very possible. I also think that some of the squalls could give us some stronger gusts up to 30 mph but so far it's calm.