Tropical Storm Erika took aim at Puerto Rico on Wednesday but the weak and wobbling storm appeared on its last legs.
With the storm shredding under strong wind shear, the National Hurricane Center said there was a good chance Erika could dissolve into a depression as it approached Hispaniola on Friday and dissipate into a tropical wave near the Turks and Caicos by Sunday.
That would be a very good thing because forecasters, following a daylong trend, also shifted the track south -- raising odds that Florida could feel something of whatever remains of Erika sometimes next week.
But with the storm still more than 1,300 miles from Miami, the peninsula still remained outside of the center's official five-day cone.
``It's definitely too early to speculate what impact it might have on South Florida,'' said Jack Bevan, a hurricane specialist at the center in Miamii.
At 5 p.m., Erika was moving west at 10 mph with its sustained winds down to 40 mph, the minimum for a tropical storm. The center posted tropical storm watches for Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, meaning gale force winds could be expected with 36 hours, and 24-hour warnings remained up for the northern Leeward Islands as well.
For the islands, rain was the only real concern - with three to five inches predicted for Puerto Rico over the next few days and up to eight inches in spots. If Erika holds to course, it could also bring heavy rain to the Dominican Republic and Haiti, where poor villages where wracked by storms, mudslides and floods after multiple hits last year.
Because the storm was so poorly organized, it was proving difficult to forecast. Expected to crawl northwest overnight, Erika jogged southwest -- possibly the result of its center reforming -- with a resulting shift south of its future track.
A Hurricane Hunter plan actually found several areas of circulation, which appeared as little swirls of clouds inside -- a bit unusual, Bevan said, but a telltale sign of a struggling storm.
``This does not have a real eye,'' he said. ``That is part of the reason it is jumping around so much.''
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