After a brutal couple of days moving slowly by Puerto Rico and then the Dominican Republic, Hurricane Fiona is back out over the open water and is poised to intensify to the season's first major hurricane.
The rainfall amounts in Puerto Rico have been tremendous, and come with catastrophic effects. Widespread totals of 1-2 feet in just a day created flash flooding and mudslides and the full aftermath will not be known for some time. The entire island lost power by the end of the day on Sunday. The map below shows a 2-day rainfall total estimate ending on Monday afternoon.
This long 53-hour radar loop spans Saturday morning through Monday afternoon, and it's easy to see how areas of extremely heavy rain persisted over the same region for hours on end.
Fiona barely skipped a beat when it passed over the flat eastern tip of the Dominican Republic, and it is already a Category 2 hurricane as of Monday afternoon. Not only was Fiona the season's first hurricane in the tropics (the other two were in the subtropics and extratropics), but it's likely to become the season's first major hurricane rather soon. The forecast track from NHC is closely aligned with the model guidance which is tightly-clustered around this scenario. It will make a very close encounter with Bermuda on Thursday night.
Elsewhere, there's a weak tropical wave in the deep tropics, centered about 1000 miles east of the Lesser Antilles. Although its prospects in the next few days are limited, there is growing model guidance that suggests it's something to keep an eye on as we head into the weekend. The next name on the list is Gaston. Gaston was a new name on this list in 2004 after Georges was retired in 1998.
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