Hurricane Danny weakens to a Category 2 storm

Danny has maximum sustained winds of 115 miles per hour and is now a Category 3 Hurricane.

The storm is extremely small and compact with hurricane force winds only extending out 15 miles from the center.

National Hurricane Center forecasters expect Danny will weaken over the next two days and arrive in the Lesser Antilles on Monday as a tropical storm.

Hurricane Danny continues its slow trek west toward the Caribbean today, though forecasters predict it will face some obstacles to strengthening in the next 24 hours.

Tropical storm watches might be required Saturday for parts of the Leeward Islands, forecasters said. Danny would then enter warm open waters of the Atlantic south of the Bahamas, where it could find more favorable conditions with reduced wind shear and less dry air.

NASA Astronaut Scott Kelly took this picture of Hurricane Danny at 6 a.m. August 20 at 6 a.m. from aboard the worldwide Space Station.

There are interests in the Virgin Islands and the Leeward Islands which will monitor this hurricane’s progress as well. And with Danny expected to be battling shear and dry air the mountain may be the final nail in the coffin for Danny. Forecasts explain that the tropical storm may become a category 2 hurricane before it reaches the western islands.

“The National Hurricane Center is not producing rainfall estimates because (Hurricane Danny) still too far”, he said.

If the timing goes as expected, an extension of an upper-level low that is moving across the Midwest and the Northeast could pick up Danny and send it packing north into the Atlantic Ocean instead of into the Gulf of Mexico.

With Hurricane Danny growing to a Category 3 storm Friday and headed toward Caribbean islands gripped by drought, emergency officials starting preparing for the possibility of flash floods and mudslides.

NOAA will be conducting a research missing in and around Danny this afternoon, and an Air Force Hurricane Hunter is expected to head in tomorrow. Assuming the west-northwest bearing remains solid, only a slight deviation could play a big role in Danny’s future, as interaction with the mountainous terrain of these islands could quickly disrupt a storm as small as Danny.