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Tropical Storm Franklin douses Bahamas, heads away

Posted on: Friday, 22 July 2005, 17:12 CDT

MIAMI (Reuters) - The sixth tropical storm of one of the busiest Atlantic hurricane seasons on record brushed the Bahamas on Friday before moving away from the island chain on a track forecasters said would likely keep it away from the U.S. coast.

Rains from Tropical Storm Franklin doused parts of the Bahamas during the day, but the Bahamian government dropped all storm warnings with only 1-2 inches (2.5 -5 cm) more possible in the northernmost islands on Friday night.

At 5 p.m. (2100 GMT) on Friday, Franklin's center was about 100 miles north-northeast of Great Abaco Island and moving to the north at 9 mph (15 kph), the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.

The storm's sustained winds were about 50 mph (80 kph), forecasters said.

The Department of Meteorology of the Bahamas said light to moderate rains fell over the Abaco area but Franklin had not brought strong winds.

"We're not getting a whole lot of weather from the system," a department spokeswoman said.

Some forecast models had predicted Franklin could loop back around in a circle and aim for the central Florida coast, potentially affecting NASA's plans for a Tuesday launch of the first space shuttle mission since the 2003 Columbia disaster.

But the storm's most likely track was to the north and then the northeast, taking it away from the United States and far out into the Atlantic Ocean in the general direction of Bermuda, forecasters said.

Franklin's formation on Thursday marked the earliest in the season since records began in 1851 that six tropical storms have formed in the Atlantic. The hurricane season runs from June 1 to the end of November.

Hurricane experts have predicted an unusually busy season this year. Two hurricanes, Dennis and Emily, have already pounded the Caribbean, Mexico and the U.S. Gulf Coast.

Last year saw 15 tropical storms, of which nine became hurricanes. Florida was struck by four of the hurricanes in a six-week period.

Most U.S. hurricane experts do not attribute the high number of storms to global warming. But climatologists say warmer sea-surface temperatures and greater amounts of water vapor in the atmosphere could lead to more intense hurricanes in the future.

Source: REUTERS

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