Recent News : Maps depict the path and forecast of Tropical Storm Ernesto as it gets closer to Puerto Rico.

Updated by CBS News on August 13, 2024 at 10:58 AM EDT

As Tropical Storm Ernesto approached the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Tuesday morning, it became stronger. According to experts, the storm may bring strong gusts and heavy rain, up to 10 inches in some areas, before possibly strengthening into a hurricane.

Ernesto developed on Monday and moved quickly toward the Caribbean, becoming the fifth named storm of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season. Following Hurricane Debby, which devastated areas of the Southeast United States with catastrophic flooding and produced a brief outbreak of severe weather last week, comes the storm.

According to the most recent projections released early on Tuesday, maps showing Ernesto’s path indicated the storm would pass by parts of the Leeward Islands in the morning before continuing on its path into the United States, the British Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico. By the evening, Ernesto could either pass over or arrive over Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, while analysts speculated that the system’s course might bring it close to the islands rather than above them.

After departing Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, Ernesto may strengthen into a hurricane, which would require its maximum sustained wind speeds to reach or surpass 74 miles per hour. That might occur by Thursday, when the hurricane is predicted to move north of the Greater Antilles.

According to the hurricane center, the storm was churning in the Atlantic Ocean early on Tuesday, some 300 miles east-southeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, and 35 miles northwest of Guadeloupe. With maximum sustained winds of 45 mph and a westward speed of eighteen miles per hour, it was more than twice as strong as it had been since the meteorologists’ last forecast many hours earlier.

The following places had tropical storm warnings: Sint Maarten; the British Virgin Islands; the U.S. Virgin Islands; Puerto Rico; Vieques; Antigua, Barbuda, and Angilla; Guadeloupe; St. Martin and St. Barthelemy; Culebra; and St. Kitts and Nevis. When forecasters predict that tropical storm conditions will affect a region within 36 hours, they issue tropical storm warnings.