Hurricane Teddy Strengthens But Moving Away From the Caribbean

Teddy is now a hurricane but poses no threat to the area, says Dale Destin of the Antigua & Barbuda Meteorological Services.

The office will continue to follow the process of what is now Hurricane Teddy, which is on a Northwest track toward the SouthWest North Atlantic, a statement said Wednesday.

All the models surveyed have the centre of Teddy passing well away from the Caribbean, hence, based on the reasonable worst-case scenario, the cyclone poses no wind threat to Antigua & Barbuda, the rest of the Leeward Islands and the British Virgin Islands.

At 11AM LST or 1500 UTC, Hurricane Teddy was located near latitude 16.5 North, Longitude 49.7 West or about 790 miles East of the Leeward Islands, moving NorthWest at around 12MPH. This general motion is expected to continue for the next few days.

Maximum sustained winds are near 100MPH with higher gusts. Additional strengthening is expected, and Teddy could become a major hurricane by late tonight.

Over the past 48 hours, the track of Teddy has been quite stable with a tight clustering of most of the models. Hence, there is a high degree of confidence that this system will pass several hundred miles away from the region, on Thursday.

There remain no tropical cyclone alerts, watches or warnings in effect and none will be required for this cyclone. However, marine alerts for high surfs are in effect.