Tropical Storm Franklin Forms in the Caribbean

If maximum sustained winds reach a speed of 74 miles per hour, Franklin would be reclassified as a Category 1 hurricane, something forecasters expect will happen before it makes landfall.

Franklin will landfall in Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula overnight Monday night at near hurricane-strength.

“Maximum sustained winds are near 45 miles per hour [75 km/h] with higher gusts”.

Franklin is expected to move across the Yucatan Peninsula from Monday night through Tuesday.

Interests along the coasts of Honduras, Belize, and the Yucatan Peninsula have been advised to monitor the progress of that disturbance. This tropical storm is not a threat to the Carolinas or the United States.

The effects of the storm, which covered a large area of the western Caribbean Sea on Monday, were tapering off by day’s end. The hurricane center advises such rains could produce life-threatening flash floods. Servicio Meteorológico Nacional is issuing a warning that some areas in the path of the storm may involve lightening, strong wind gusts, possible hail, thunderstorms, vortices or tornadoes.

Track these systems using the interactive hurricane tracker on ABC-7.com!

Further east, Invest 99-L continues to move west-northwestward across the eastern Atlantic, approaching the greater Antilles later this week.

The tropical Atlantic has been much warmer than normal for the past several months, and is likely to remain so, therefore providing more fuel for developing tropical cyclones. Franklin is forecast to make landfall over the Yucatan at nearly the exact same location, date and hour as Ernesto. About 80 percent of all hurricanes in the Atlantic have developed from August through October.