By The Star Staff
A Monday morning report from the National Hurricane Center stated that Tropical Storm Franklin will bypass Puerto Rico, but nonetheless is likely to produce heavy rainfall in parts of Hispaniola and Puerto Rico over the next few days.
Franklin was located at latitude 15.0 degrees north, longitude 69.0 degrees west, some 245 miles (295 kilometers) south of Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic, early Monday, when it had maximum sustained winds of 50 miles per hour. Its movement to the west was at 12 miles per hour.
The storm was expected to produce accumulated rainfall of 2 to 4 inches in Puerto Rico, with isolated amounts of up to 6 inches, through midweek, raising the risk of flooding and mudslides, the National Weather Service (NWS) in San Juan said.
Also on Monday the NWS issued a special weather alert for severe storms separate from Tropical Storm Franklin that would affect parts of the southeast and eastern interior of Puerto Rico until 10:45 a.m.
According to the NWS, at 9:42 a.m. a line of strong storms was located from near Punta Santiago to Maunabo, moving westward at around six miles per hour (mph).
The main risk with those storms was winds that could reach up to 40 mph and cause minor damage to tree branches and send light, unsecured objects airborne.
The NWS recommended that people outdoors seek shelter immediately “in the presence of these storms.”