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CNN Live Saturday

Tropical Storm Chantal Moves Toward Jamaica

Aired August 18, 2001 - 12:00   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
DONNA KELLEY, CNN ANCHOR: After a brief show of weakness, Tropical Storm Chantal is coming back stronger, faster and deadlier. Chantal is moving quickly toward Jamaica after leaving two dead in Trinidad. Forecasters say it could become a full blown hurricane by late today or tomorrow. The National Weather Service has issued a hurricane watch for Jamaica and a tropical storm watch for the Cayman Islands.

And our meteorologist Kevin Corriveau joins us to give us an idea of what's going on and the least with Chantal.

KEVIN CORRIVEAU, CNN METEOROLOGIST: Well, we just received a new advisory at 11:00 Eastern time of advisory of a 12. And this one is showing that it is still expected to be a tropical storm for the next 24 hours and also pushing it now to about 36 hours.

As we take a look the satellite image, you can see us moving down into Caribbean. And that is going show us a storm. And it has passed the Leward Islands over last couple days. And here it is located right here as we are seeing the system start to move into the Gulf of Mexico.

And now what we are going to do is we are going to see, as we move the motion one more time, we are going to see the system continue to make its eastward track, excuse me westward track. With these coordinates right here currently, it is 280 miles southeast of Kingston, Jamaica. It is moving about 24 miles per hour and the winds are 60 miles per hour. We do expect this to continue on westerly to our -- excuse me, west, northwesterly track over the next 24 to 36 hours.

Here's that current track. If you take a look, it does not become a hurricane strength until about 36 hours. And by Tuesday morning, we do expect it to get close to the Yucatan peninsula. And then it does get into the Gulf of Mexico. So we do have a little bit ways to go before that does become a threat to the mainland of the United States.

And we do have seen over the last 24 hours, this reconnaissance plane has come into this system. And it has showed that the definition of the system is not too definite right now. It has weakened a little bit. Circulation has changed in the upper -- the middle part of it has become elongated. So we are going to see this system pretty much stay the same over the next 24 hours, 36 hours. This is what we are looking for. We do have watches. They have been downgraded from hurricane watches, warnings, excuse me, now to tropical storm warnings for parts of Jamaica and also into the Grand Cayman Islands.

Donna, that's a look your national weather and a look at the tropical storm. Now back to you.

KELLEY: OK, Kevin, thanks very much.

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