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From Monsters and Critics.com US News Washington - As the country observed the first anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Tropical Storm Ernesto was expected to strengthen and dump heavy rains over southern Florida Tuesday night and into Wednesday. Bands of rain were nearing the Florida Key and southeast Florida Coast, and the centre of the storm was expected to approach the Florida Keys Tuesday night, the US National Hurricane Centre reported. Ernesto could bring up to a metre of storm surge flooding and 13 to 25 centimetres of rain to Florida. Tuesday morning the storm was located about 275 kilometres southeast of Key West, Florida and 285 kilometres southeast of Miami. It was moving northwest at about 20 kilometres per hour. The storm dumped up to 25 centimetres of rain on Cuba Monday evening and early Tuesday, and prompted evacuation of hundreds of thousands of people to safer ground. A tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch remained in effect for parts of the northwestern Bahamas and a tropical storm warning in the United States extended as far north as Georgia. Earlier the hurricane centre had warned that the storm could become a low-grade category 1 hurricane, but the centre's most recent advisory had dropped the hurricane predictions. © 2006 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur© Copyright 2003 - 2005 by monstersandcritics.com. This notice cannot be removed without permission. |