Tropical storms may lack the wind speeds of hurricanes, but can still pack a powerful punch. In fact, the most deadly storm of the 2005 season was not a hurricane but rather Tropical Storm Jeanne, which caused damaging heavy rainfall in Haiti, the Dominican Republic, Puerto Rico, and the U.S. Virgin Islands; mudslides caused by the storm killed more than 600 people in Haiti.
Bands of tropical weather also regularly traverse the region and can bring short-term heavy rains that also can cause dangerous conditions. Most tourists, however, will not be in the more impoverished areas of islands like Puerto Rico and Haiti, where rain-related hazards are most likely to occur. As with hurricanes, most tropical storms miss the southernmost islands of the Caribbean like Curacao, Bonaire, Aruba, and Trinidad and Tobago.
A tropical storm can bring enough sustained rain to put a serious damper on your trip, but tropical waves typically bring just a day of rain as they pass through, says former National Hurricane Center director Bob Sheets.
