The clean up after Hurricane Harvey has barely begun in earnest and already another storm threat may be taking a bead on the US. The National Hurricane Center now rates Hurricane Irma as a category 4. And it would only take a slight change in heading for Florida’s east coast to be hit dead center by tropical or hurricane force winds:
It’s looking more likely that Hurricane Irma will affect the U.S. coast — potentially making a direct landfall — starting Friday. The powerful storm strengthened slightly overnight, and as of Monday morning was a powerful Category 3 storm with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph. As it tracks west toward the Caribbean, hurricane warnings have been issued for portions of the Leeward Islands and hurricane watches are in place for Puerto Rico. Additional advisories will probably be issued later Monday as the forecasted track of Irma becomes more clear.
Irma is a classic Cape Verde type hurricane that began life as a tropical depression off the coast of western Africa. These storms have a long time to build and stabilize. Right now the forecast track takes the center of the storm south of Miami on the tip of Florida. But these kinds of storms are notorious for curving more north and northwest as they near the US than initial tracks predict. There was even a model run earlier today that takes the eye into the NYC region in about a week.
There has been some speculation -- coming from somewhere on the Intertoobz no doubt -- that Irma is some kind of freak super “typhoon-like” dealio with possible 180 MPH winds in the making. Well, that’s sort of true of a lot of storms at this stage. But right now the models suggest a cat 4 is the most likely peak intensity for the foreseeable future if it remains on course past the southern tip of Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico. But if it does thread that needle, it could then go on and pose a real risk to just about any region along the gulf coast including Texas, Mexico, or Louisiana.