Tropical Storm Bret Update: Hurricane Watch Issued for St. Lucia

The second named storm of the 2023 season, Tropical Storm Bret, barred towards St. Vincent and St. Lucia on Thursday night, bringing heavy rain and winds of up to 60 mph to the area.

According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC), as of 8 p.m., the storm was about 55 miles southeast of St. Lucia and 60 miles west-northwest of Barbados, traveling at 16 mph. The expectation from the NHC is that the storm will continue to move, picking up speed during the next few days. The NHC says the storm will most likely move west across the eastern and central Caribbean Sea Friday and Saturday, eventually dissipating over the central Caribbean Sea on Sunday.

Because of a boost in strength, the NHC officially issued a Hurricane Watch for St. Lucia on Thursday night, advising that hurricane conditions (winds above 74 mph) are possible within the area within the next 24 hours.

The NHC also issued Tropical Storm Warnings for Dominica, Martinique, Barbados, and St. Vincent and the Grenadines, with more possible on Thursday night, meaning that winds of up to 73 mph could hit the island. It issued the same warning for St. Lucia, along with that Hurricane Watch.

The storm is expected to miss the majority of Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Jamaica. 

At the same time, the NHC upgraded the potential Tropical Cyclone it had been monitoring all week. There are no coastal warnings in effect for that storm just yet, but the NHC said that it will technically become a Tropical Storm on Thursday night or Friday and its path will head north-northeast, remaining well east of the northern Leeward Islands through early next week. See below for that forecast: