Tropical Storm Tammy forms in the Atlantic

Tropical Storm Tammy has formed in the Atlantic Basin, with sustained winds of 40 mph, and is on track to pass over some of the islands in the eastern Caribbean before turning north.

The storm is currently located 625 miles east of the Windward Islands, traveling west at 23 mph. Tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 140 miles to the northeast of the center.

There are tropical storm watches issued for Barbados, Dominica, Martinique and Guadeloupe. Tropical storm conditions could begin in those areas on Friday.

Rainfall totals could reach 3 to 6 inches, with maximum amounts of 10 inches in the islands of the eastern Caribbean, with rain of 1 to 2 inches with maximum amounts of 4 inches in the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and eastern Puerto Rico. Mudslides, and isolated flash and urban flooding are possible.

Large and potentially dangerous swells from Tammy will hit the eastern Caribbean on Thursday.

The storm is expected to curve west-northwest on Thursday, and northwest on Friday, and strengthen slowly. Forecasters expect wind speeds of 70 mph by Sunday.

The current forecast and models have the system eventually curving northwest away from Florida, but the islands of the far eastern Caribbean, such as the Lesser Antilles, could be affected.

So far this season in the Atlantic, there have been 19 named storms, six of which were hurricanes. Of those, three were major hurricanes, meaning Category 3 or above.

Those were Hurricane Lee, a rare Category 5; Hurricane Franklin, a Category 4; and Hurricane Idalia, which made landfall on Florida’s Big Bend region at Category 3 strength on Aug. 30.

The remaining storm names for 2023 are Vince and Whitney. If all those names end up being used this season, the National Hurricane Center would turn to the supplemental list of names from the World Meteorological Association. In previous years, the Greek alphabet was used for additional storm names — which had only happened twice before — during the record-shattering hurricane seasons in 2005 and 2020.

Hurricane season officially runs through Nov. 30.