The remnants of Tropical Storm Gaston look very likely to strengthen again as a tropical cyclone in the Atlantic and could threaten the Caribbean’s Leeward Islands in coming days on a westward track, US forecasters said on Sunday.
The National Hurricane Center gave Gaston, which weakened to a remnant low-pressure area on Thursday soon after becoming a tropical cyclone, an 80 percent chance of redeveloping over the next 48 hours.
An area of low pressure over the extreme southwestern Gulf of Mexico became a tropical depression on Sunday night with top sustained winds of 45kph, the hurricane center said.
It was predicted the depression could strengthen to a tropical storm yesterday as it moved northwestward inland.
The Mexican government issued a tropical storm warning for the Gulf coast from Tampico to the border with Texas.
If they become tropical storms, these systems could be the new focus of weather concern in a recent flurry of Atlantic hurricane season activity, which saw Hurricane Earl brush the US East Coast last week before coming ashore in Canada on Saturday and fizzling out.
Canadian energy companies were checking their facilities and operations after Earl’s passage.
The US hurricane center said the remnant low of Gaston was located about 1,120km east of the Leeward Islands, battered by Earl last week.
“The low could redevelop into a tropical depression at any time today or tonight,” the hurricane center said.
The center warned authorities in the Leeward Islands to monitor the system, but it was still too early to tell whether the Gaston remnant could eventually threaten the US Gulf of Mexico, where major US oil and gas production and refining operations are located, or also Florida.
Meteorologist Jeff Masters of private forecaster Weather Underground predicted Gaston would pass over or just to the northeast of the Lesser Antilles Islands today.
“Gaston may threaten Puerto Rico on Wednesday, the Dominican Republic on Thursday, and Haiti, Jamaica and/or the Turks and Caicos Islands by Friday, depending upon the storm’s interaction with a trough of low pressure expected to move off the US East Coast later this week,” Masters wrote in a blog posted on Sunday.
Energy traders keep a close eye on potentially violent storms approaching the Gulf because it is home to about 30 percent of US oil production, 11 percent of natural gas production and more than 43 percent of US refinery capacity.
The hurricane season runs from June 1 through Nov. 30 and is currently in its peak period.
ACTIONABLE ADVICE: The majority of chatbots tested provided guidance on weapons, tactics and target selections, with Perplexity and Meta AI deemed to be the least safe From school shootings to synagogue bombings, leading artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots helped researchers plot violent attacks, according to a study published on Wednesday that highlighted the technology’s potential for real-world harm. Researchers from the nonprofit watchdog Center for Countering Digital Hate and CNN posed as 13-year-old boys in the US and Ireland to test 10 chatbots, including ChatGPT, Google Gemini, Perplexity, Deepseek and Meta AI. Eight of the chatbots assisted the make-believe attackers in more than half the responses, providing advice on “locations to target” and “weapons to use” in an attack, the study said. The chatbots had become a “powerful accelerant for
Australians were downloading virtual private networks (VPNs) in droves, while one of the world’s largest porn distributors said it was blocking users from its platforms as the country yesterday rolled out sweeping online age restriction. Australia in December became the first country to impose a nationwide ban on teenagers using social media. A separate law now requires artificial intelligence (AI)-powered chatbot services to keep certain content — including pornography, extreme violence and self-harm and eating disorder material — from minors or face fines of up to A$49.5 million (US$34.6 million). The country also joined Britain, France and dozens of US states requiring
Hungarian authorities temporarily detained seven Ukrainian citizens and seized two armored cars carrying tens of millions of euros in cash across Hungary on suspicion of money laundering, officials said on Friday. The Ukrainians were released on Friday, following their detention on Thursday, but Hungarian officials held onto the cash, prompting Ukraine to accuse Hungary’s Russia-friendly government of illegally seizing the money. “We will not tolerate this state banditism,” Ukrainian Minister of Foreign Affairs Andrii Sybiha said. The seven detained Ukrainians were employees of the Ukrainian state-owned Oschadbank, who were traveling in the two armored cars that were carrying the money between Austria and
Kosovar President Vjosa Osmani on Friday after dissolving the Kosovar parliament said a snap election should be held as soon as possible to avoid another prolonged political crisis in the Balkan country at a time of global turmoil. Osmani said it is important for Kosovo to wrap up the upcoming election process and form functional institutions for political stability as the war rages in the Middle East. “Precisely because the geopolitical situation is that complex, it is important to finish this electoral process which is coming up,” she said. “It is very hard now to imagine what will happen next.” Kosovo, which declared
RSS