Tropical cyclone warning

MIAMI (CMC):

Residents in the Windward and Leeward Islands, up to yesterday, were being urged to follow the passage of an elongated area of low pressure that meteorological officials warn could become a tropical cyclone during the next 48 hours.

The Miami-based National Hurricane Centre (NHC) said that the system, extending from the Lesser Antilles eastward several hundred miles into the tropical Atlantic Ocean, is producing a large area of cloudiness, showers and thunderstorms.

NHC said the thunderstorm acti-vity has become more concentrated about 350 miles east of the French island of Martinique and a tropical depression or a tropical storm could form in this area later.

Regardless of tropical cyclone formation, this system will bring heavy rainfall locally and gusty winds to portions of the Lesser Antilles, the NHC added.