Earl forecast to become a hurricane, move near or east of Bermuda by Friday

Tropical Storm Earl, churning about 350 miles north of San Juan, Puerto Rico, remains messy and disorganized Tuesday morning but is expected to grow into a strong hurricane as it passes near or to the east of Bermuda on Friday.

Although Earl has made occasional attempts at strengthening – including a brush with hurricane status Monday night – a spigot hose of hostile wind shear dousing thunderstorms from the southwest has been too big an adversary so far to overcome.

Despite its ugly appearance Tuesday morning, Earl is a blustery storm, especially to the northeast of its center where a NOAA research hurricane hunter airplane is still finding 60 mph winds some 40-50 miles from its center.

While Earl’s blustery winds have stayed over water, a long tail of moisture feeding up from the Caribbean has been problematic for the eastern region of Puerto Rico, including Vieques and Culebra, and parts of the U.S. Virgin Islands, where 4-8 inches of rain fell Monday, and another 4-6 inches is possible Tuesday and Wednesday.

Earl will be riding northward around a break along the western edge of high-pressure steering. By late week, it’ll begin to accelerate northeastward while the orientation of jet stream winds become more conducive to strengthening.

The current forecast calls for a near-Category 3 hurricane to be sliding near or to the east of Bermuda by Friday. Interests on the island will want to continue to monitor the progress of Earl.

Elsewhere across the Atlantic, Danielle is accelerating into the north Atlantic graveyard where it will merge with a large non-tropical weather system.

The disturbance currently located near the Cabo Verde Islands off Africa has a modest chance of development, but will be following in Danielle and Earl’s footsteps northward and is no threat to land. We’ll be watching a new wave set to leave Africa in a few days, but we’ll have plenty of time to track it.

Otherwise, with the peak of the season fast approaching, we don’t see any looming threats to us back here in the mainland U.S. through at least the next week.