ropical Storm Warnings have been posted for: Antigua, Barbuda, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, Anguilla, St. Maarten, Saba, and St. Eustatius. That means that Tropical storm conditions are likely within 24 hours. The Northern Leeward islands can expect 2-4 inches of rain, with isolated areas seeing up to 6 inches over the next couple of days as Erika continues on her track.

NOAA’s Geostationary Operational Environmental (GOES) satellite, GOES-12 captured a satellite snapshot of Tropical Storm Erika earlier today, September 2 at 7:45 a.m. EDT. NASA’s GOES Project, located at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Md. created the latest satellite image that showed Erika struggling to maintain her intensity as she brings rain to the Leeward Islands. A westerly wind shear is what has caused her strength to wane. Wind shear means winds at different levels of the atmosphere blowing strong enough to interfere with a storm’s circulation.

At 8 a.m. EDT today, Erika was a little weaker than she was yesterday when her sustained winds powered up quickly to 50 mph. Now her maximum sustained winds are near 45 mph, but that will be short-lived as she’s again expected to re-strengthen tomorrow. Those tropical storm-force winds extend 120 miles out from the center, although mainly to the northeast of the center. The northeast quadrant of a tropical cyclone is typically where the strongest winds are found.

Appearing somewhat disorganized on this morning’s GOES-12 satellite imagery, Erika is approaching the Leeward Islands. She’s about 160 miles east-southeast of them, near 16.5 north and 59.5 west. Her minimum central pressure is near 1008 millibars. She’s moving near 7 mph in a westward direction, but is expected to shift on a west-northwesterly track and speed up a little over the next day or two. That means that her projected track will carry her near or over the Leeward Islands in the next day or two.