14 DAY TRIAL // Meteorologists warn that Hurricane Earl has just transformed into a Category 4 storm, which is already wrecking havoc in the French Antilles. The path the storm will take in the future is still unclear.
According to the US National Hurricane Center (NHC), the atmospheric event is accompanied by heavy rains, and by winds exceeding speed of 135 miles per hour (215 kilometers per hour).
Officials at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) say that Earl might make landfall alongside the Virginia coastlines, and have issued related warnings to those living in the area.
From its current position, the storm is expected to take a path that will take it northwestwards, along the East Coast of the United States. At this point, there is no reason to believe that it will head towards Florida.
Hurricane Earl is currently making the rounds in waters northeast of Puerto Rico, experts say, where it will remain for the next few days, before finally moving onwards.
According to watches released by authorities, Hurricane Earl was a Category 3 storm early on Monday, but its status was changed yesterday.
Experts conducting various studies on how hurricanes develop flew in or around Earl these past few days, in an attempt to make sense of how tropical storms turn into hurricanes.
This has puzzled meteorologists for many years. While some storms turn into devastating hurricanes, making landfall as tornadoes, and destroying property and so on, others simply fizzle out.
What precisely makes the difference between the two is still unknown, and many research teams, including scientists at NASA, are working hard to figure this out.
According to OurAmazingPlanet, Puerto Rico, the US Virgin Islands, the British Virgin Islands, and Turks and Caicos Islands are all under tropical storm warnings.
In addition to Earl and Danielle, which is currently trotting about in the north Atlantic, tropical storm Fiona is also showing sings of intensification.
It currently has winds speeds of up to 65 kilometers per hour, and now presents itself as a tropical depression in the eastern parts o the Leeward Islands.
It is estimated that it will continue to track east of many Caribbean islands, following about the same path Earl did when it appeared.