The Tribune

By DANA SMITH

Tribune Staff Reporter

dsmith@tribunemedia.net

Weather conditions are going to continue to deteriorate as the day wears on and weather experts warn Hurricane Sandy is "nothing to take lightly."

Senior Meteorologist Dan Pydynowski of the AccuWeather Centre said over the next 24 hours as the storm moves north, the entire Bahamas will experience strong winds and rains with the brunt of the storm passing over the central and western islands.

"The general trend here is the weather is going to increasingly worse over the next 12 to 18 hours - maybe I should say 12 - 24. The storm is moving generally north around 20mph and the centre of the storm is going to pass pretty close to Nassau - to the east of Nassau, sometime early Friday morning around 6am or 7am," he said.

"Between now and then is increasing rain and wind. The centre is going to go close enough where you'll have a time of sustained hurricane force winds very late tonight into early tomorrow morning. Then the storms pulls into the north tomorrow afternoon.

"So by tomorrow night the weather should improve. The worse of the weather will be tonight. You're talking hurricane force winds gust later today, tonight, and tomorrow morning. Certainly there will be damage from that - such as power outages."

Mr Pydynowski said as the day wears on, "conditions are going to deteriorate pretty quickly" as the hurricane approaches the country.

"The further south and east you go, the less you feel the impact... but there will be heavy rains and winds," he said, adding: "It nothing to take lightly."

Last night NEMA warned that hurricane conditions were expected somewhere within the northwest and central Bahamas within 36 hours.

This includes Grand Bahama, Bimini, Abaco, The Berry Islands, Andros, Eleuthera, New Providence, Exuma, Cat Island, Rum Cay, San Salvador and Long Island.

A tropical storm warning was in effect for the southeast Bahamas, including Acklins, Crooked Island, Long Cay, Mayaguana, Inagua and Ragged Island.

On the forecast track the centre of Sandy will move over central Bahamas today and tonight and move near or over the northwestern Bahamas on Friday.