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Well hello there! Good morning and happy Friday! This morning Friday August 22nd, here in Casa de Campo we have woken up to… very grey skies. Sadly not the normal bright blue Caribbean skies we love so much. So what’s going on?
To be honest the weather forecast is a little confusing, but basically, a tropical weather system being referred to as “Invest 96L” is heading our way / arriving to the Dominican Republic as we speak.
We all know the “normal” drill; tropical depression = bad (lots of rain and flooding), tropical storm = bad (lots of rain, flooding and wind), hurricane = very bad (scary winds). But what exactly is an “Invest”? And what does it mean for us?
Invest 96L
Flying into the area yesterday afternoon, the “hurricane hunters” found the following:
- Invest 96L has a small area of low pressure with poorly-defined circulation (which is what is needed for a tropical cyclone to develop).
- Invest 96L has a small area of tropical storm force winds (between 39 mph or 63 km/hr to 73 mph or 118 km/hr).
- Invest 96L is moving in a west-north-westerly direction at 24mph, meaning it’s path will cross directly over the Dominican Republic today.
- Within the next 48 hours, Invest 96L could develop into a tropical depression, or the 3rd tropical storm of the 2014 Atlantic Hurricane Season- Tropical Storm Cristobal.
So what does that mean for us?
- Grey skies – check!
- Rain – check!
- More rain – looking very likely.
- Thunder and lightning.
- Gusts of high winds.
- Storm surge.
Conclusion
This is not a beach day. But seriously, it looks like it’s going to be rainy, maybe a bit windy… but hopefully nothing too bad. It’s not time to “batten down the hatches”, but if you had a BBQ planned, looks like you might have to grill indoors!
So let’s wait and see how 96L develops…