USA: Hurricane Irma Swiftly Heading For South Florida

Hurricane Irma continued it’s ominous trek toward Florida overnight with little change in forecast path or wind intensity.

As of the 5 a.m. update from the National Hurricane Center, Irma was a 180-mph major tropical cyclone moving west-northwest at 17 mph.

Under the current forecast, the center of Irma will be just north of Palm Beach County at 8 p.m. Sunday. Tropical storm-force winds could begin late Friday.

Forecasters said Irma may weaken slightly in its westward path, but that it will likely make landfall in Florida as a Category 4 hurricane.

While the center of the track is taking the storm along the east coast of the state, all of the Florida peninsula remains in the cone, and forecasters pleaded that people not focus on the center of the forecast track.

Track errors at forecast days 4 and 5 are between 175 to 225 miles.

Hurricane watches for the Keys and South Florida are expected today.

A hurricane watch means you have approximately 48 hours before hurricane-force winds reach your area. A warning is issued 36 hours in advance.

At 4 a.m. Irma was passing north of the eastern Dominican Republic and was 225 miles east-southeast of Grand Turk Island.

While Irma is not forecast to reach Florida until Sunday, tropical storm-force winds are possible as early as Friday night in portions of extreme South Florida and officials are urging everyone to have preparations complete by then.

“This is a growing and serious situation,” said Kevin Scharfenberg, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Miami. “We have lots of computer models, not just one, and, unfortunately, they are in very good agreement right now that there will be a hurricane in the neighborhood this weekend.”

“People need to act as if they are sure the storm is coming at its worst, even if we can’t be sure the worst is coming,” said Bryan Norcross, a Weather Channel hurricane expert who is credited with saving lives during Hurricane Andrew when he was a Miami meteorologist. “If the storm were to go right up Interstate 95, it would be worse than Wilma, significantly worse.”

Hurricane Wilma, the last storm to bear that name, hit on the west coast of Florida with Category 3-force. By the time it reached Palm Beach County, it was a Category 2.

Erik Blake, a National Hurricane Center scientist, said seeing powerhouse Irma so closely follow devastating Hurricane Harvey reminded him of the 2004-2005 storm seasons that ripped Florida from the Panhandle to Palm Beach.

“Ugh,” he said.

Perhaps at no time in history has the atmosphere been so scrutinized as this week with dozens of weather balloons launching daily across the belly of the country to measure an upper-level trough that plays a crucial role in Irma’s forecast.

It’s that trough, which is digging east with the jet stream, that could tug Irma north into a weak area on the west side of the Bermuda High and steer it to the east of Florida.

While the that path would be similar to Hurricane Matthew in 2016, forecasters said Irma is a more difficult storm to predict at this point because Matthew was coming from the south, after having already made a right turn.

“Irma is coming in from the southeast, and these storms from the southeast are much more problematic because they have to make a stronger turn,” said Dan Kottlowski, a hurricane expert with AccuWeather. “In this sense, it’s more dangerous than Matthew.”


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