Tropical storm Karen, packing maximum sustained winds of 40 miles per hour (65 kph), is on track to pass near or over Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on as a tropical storm, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami reported.
Karen took shape near the Windward Islands of the Caribbean on Sunday as it headed for the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico, still struggling to recover from devastating back-to-back hurricanes in 2017.
In addition to high winds, forecasts called for up to a half-foot (15 cm) of rain in parts of Puerto Rico, and as much as 4 inches (10 cm) elsewhere on that island, with warnings of possible flash floods and mudslides.
Karen, the 11th named storm of the 2019 Atlantic hurricane season, formed on Sunday (September 22) afternoon east of the Lesser Antilles, prompting tropical storm warnings for the islands of Grenada and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.
The NHC said, a tropical storm watch was posted on Sunday for Puerto Rico, the U.S. Virgin Islands and British Virgin Islands. While those islands lie in Karen’s projected path for landfall on Tuesday, little change in the storm’s strength was forecast for the next 48 hours