Last night tropical storm Katia was upgraded to a category 1 hurricane causing concern to residents to many the Northern coastal cities of the Dominican Republic. Having just cleaned up the mess caused by Hurricane Irene many are concerned about possible temporary affects to the tourism in the area.

While it does look like Katia will be continuing to gain strength over the next few days, possible even reaching the status of major hurricane by the weekend, Katia’s current projected forecast moves it well north of the DR and other islands like Puerto Rico and the Bahamas.

Katia is about 1065 miles east of the Leeward Islands and although it is moving west it is expect to curve into a northwest direction by Friday morning taking it in a path well clear of the islands. Katia’s current speed of travel is about 20 mph, this is expected to reduce in the next couple days as the hurricane changes its path from west to north west.

At this point hurricane force winds are reaching out 25 miles from the center of the storm with tropical force winds extending outward to 125 miles from the center.

While it is a good idea to continue to watch the reports, at this time there doesn’t seem to be much reason for travels to change their plans because of Hurricane Katia if they are planning to visit the Dominican Republic.