NASA watching System 94L over Lesser Antilles for development

The Geostationary Operational Environmental Satellite known as GOES-13 captured a visible image of System 94L over the Lesser Antilles on June 18 at 11:45 UTC (7:45 a.m. EDT). System 94L appears as a large area of clouds over the group of islands. GOES-13 was launched by NASA and is now operated by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). NASA's GOES Project at the Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Md. created the latest satellite image.

System 94L is associated with a strong tropical wave that's producing a large area of showers and thunderstorms as it heads west-northwest over the Lesser Antilles. The Lesser Antilles lie on the eastern end of the Caribbean Sea and on the western boundary with the Atlantic Ocean.

On June 18, System 94L was moving through the Lesser Antilles and bringing some heavy rainfall and gusty winds to that group of islands. The Lesser Antilles include the smaller islands of the Caribbean: the Virgin Islands and the Windward Islands and Leeward Islands.

Heavy rain and gusty winds from System 94L are expected to move over areas of the Leeward Islands, Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico over the weekend. System 94L is forecast to move west-northwestward over the weekend and on June 18, it was traveling that direction at 15 mph.

The National Hurricane Center noted that “Upper-level winds are expected to remain unfavorable for development and there is a low chance, about 20 percent, that this system will become a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours.”