Tropical Storm Ernesto strengthened into a hurricane on Wednesday, after bringing “significant flooding” to Puerto Rico and Virgin Islands and moved north. The National Hurricane Center shared earlier in the day that Ernesto, located about 175 miles northwest of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and 835 miles south-southwest of Bermuda, had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph, becoming a Category 1 storm on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, and was traveling northwest at 16 mph. Forecasters expect it to even strengthen more in the coming days.
NHC officials said that they believe the storm will continue to move over the western Atlantic later in the week and be near Bermuda by Friday, with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 35 miles from the storm’s center and tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 230 miles.
More than 700,000 customers in Puerto Rico – half of all customers on the island – were without power Wednesday, according to LUMA Energy, the private company that operates the transmission and distribution of power in Puerto Rico. In the US Virgin Islands – which includes the island of St. Croix and nearly everyone on the islands of St. Thomas and St. John — with more than 46,000 customers were without power, which is about 92% of the island’s tracked customers, according to PowerOutage.us.
President Biden approved an emergency declaration for Puerto Rico, with the White House saying they were authorizing FEMA to help with storm recovery. The hurricane center said the storm is expected to produce between 4 and 6 inches of rain over the U.S. and British Virgin Islands and up to 10 inches across southeastern Puerto Rico. Flash flooding and mudslides could occur in the U.S. territories, the hurricane center said, as Ernesto continues bring “ongoing heavy rains.”
Ernesto marks the fifth named storm so far of the Atlantic hurricane season. NOAA has predicted an above-normal season, with 17-25 named storms, eight to 13 hurricanes, and four to seven major hurricanes.
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