Tropical Storm Bertha Hits the Lesser Antilles

[steve2470]

http://www.wunderground.com/blog/JeffMasters/comment.html?entrynum=2744





The center of Tropical Storm Bertha was passing between the Lesser Antilles islands of Martinique and Dominica near 4 pm EDT on Friday, but has brought little in the way of strong winds or heavy rain to the Lesser Antilles Islands so far. As of 4 pm, Martinique had received 0.35" of rain, with top winds of 22 mph. Dominica had a wind gust of 43 mph at 4 pm EDT, and had picked up 0.08" of rain. The storm's top winds of 50 mph were located about 100 - 150 miles east-northeast of the center, and this portion of the storm will affect the northernmost Leeward Islands Friday night as Bertha speeds west-northwest at 22 mph. Visible satellite loops on Friday afternoon showed that although Bertha's surface circulation was exposed to view due to wind shear, the storm was growing more organized. Bertha had a modest area of heavy thunderstorms on the east side of the circulation, but heavy thunderstorms were beginning to fire up near the center of circulation. Martinique radar also showed increased organization, with more spiral bands forming and growing more intense near the center. This modest increase in organization may be due to the fact that wind shear due to strong upper-level winds out of the west had dropped by 5 knots since Friday morning, and was a moderate 15 knots on Friday afternoon. These winds were still driving dry air to the west of Bertha into the circulation, limiting heavy thunderstorms on the west side of the storm. An Air Force C-130 hurricane hunter aircraft was investigating Bertha early Friday afternoon, and found that the storm's central pressure had fallen 3 mb since Friday morning, to 1007 mb. Top surface winds measured by the plane were about 50 mph.

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