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Gaston Fizzles, But Stay Tuned

Wednesday, forecasters said Gaston was on a track to hit the Virgin Islands as a hurricane. Thursday, Gaston was a remnant low and a reminder of the imprecise nature of hurricane forecasting.

“It ran into a lot of dry Saharan air and the thunderstorms weakened,” meteorologist Luis Rosa at the National Weather Service in San Juan, explained.

However, Rosa warned residents not to let down their guard because the remnants of Gaston are approaching warmer water and the storm could regenerate at any moment.

“Some models say we could be dealing with a tropical cyclone,” he said.

As of 5 p.m., what was Gaston is centered at 13.5 degrees north latitude and 39.5 degrees west longitude.

The wind speed stands at 30 mph, with higher gusts. It is moving west at 5 mph. The barometric pressure stands at 1009 millibars or 29.80 inches.

Gaston started Thursday as a tropical storm. At the 11 a.m. update, it was a tropical depression, and by 5 p.m. a remnant low.

The 5 p.m. advisory was the last issued by the National Hurricane Center unless Gaston regenerates.

The National Hurricane Center is also keeping an eye on another low pressure system that just emerged off the African coast. It currently has a 10 percent chance of developing into a tropical cyclone within the next 48 hours.

Hurricane season officially runs through Nov. 30.

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