Wednesday Early AM Update
Omar a cat 1 hurricane
Omar was officially upgraded to a 75 mph hurricane at 11 pm edt. This looks like a reasonable estimate. Satellite imagery shows that an eye is trying to become visible, but is still not quite there yet. We expect additional strengthening as Omar should be over the Virgin Islands in about 24 hours - Wednesday night.
A buoy in the eastern Caribbean Sea north of Omar recently measured a sea to 15'. Seas have been increasing rapidly over the past few hours. Look for large swell to affect the south coasts of the northern Caribbean Islands and west shores of the Windwards and Leewards.
Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao have experienced heavy rain and storms over the past 24 hours. Aruba reported eight hours of heavy rain, but did not give a rain total. A rain total of 2.65" was measured in Curacao or the 24 hour period ending at 8 pm Tuesday night.

Residents of Puerto Rico eastward to the Leewards should prepare for heavy rain and strong gusty winds and power outages. Puerto Rico, St Thomas, St Croix, St John into the BVI will see the worst of the conditions - possibly a cat 2 (95-110 mph) hurricane. Conditions will get worse rapidly during the day Wednesday.

Please let us know how weather conditions are where you are. Send your replys to our "Eye of the Storm" thread - Island Reports! We'd love to hear from our patons from the Puerto Rico, Aruba, the Virgin Islands, or any other location being affected by Omar.
http://tropicalweather.net/forum/viewforum.php?f=7

Here are a few ideas for preparing for a tropical cyclone:
http://www.tropicalweather.net/plan.htm
TropicalWeather.net's Tropical Pic
