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Laura is one of those atypical storms that are very difficult to predict and anticipate. Whenever the forecasts are down, it intensifies and each time we believe that it will finally organize itself properly it crumbles a little more.
The only constant is the wind which remains around 40 kts on its north. And it is this wind that will interest the northern islands tonight with gusts that could exceed 50 kts. So yes, it is indeed a storm even if it does not really have the shape.
Sunset is what is known as Dmin, the time of day when convection weakens and the organization is least likely to improve. It is therefore logical that we have this satellite imagery also in bulk for an already very poorly organized system. But the convection could resume quite quickly once nightfall sets in, which risks again causing good stormy rain sequences over the entire northern half of the arc with overflows further south like this morning. The strong wind should only affect the extreme north of the arc, except locally elsewhere under the most important squalls.
The northern islands are always on ORANGE Watching for strong winds and heavy rains and thunderstorms. Watching is yellow for rough seas.
Guadeloupe is on ORANGE Watching for heavy rains and thunderstorms (a little out of tune in fact)
Martinique is on YELLOW Watching for heavy rains and thunderstorms.
The 2 islands therefore have no Watching for the wind which is totally logical (this system of differentiated Watching is interesting but not necessarily always understandable because of the media which do not do enough pedagogy on the subject)
I am going to let Laura pass the West Indies tonight and I will come back tomorrow on the rest of her trajectory and on the wave leaving Africa which continues to make people fantasize a lot but did not experience its passage very well. at sea and saw his risk at 5 days reduced to 30% by the nhc.
Image credits; Tropical tidbits, NHC / Noaa, UW-CIMSS
