Hurricane force winds have reached the eastern part of Puerto Rico. Both storm surge and flash flooding from rain are a concern as the eye of Hurricane Irma passes slightly north of the island. At 4:30 EST, the eye of Irma was moving slightly further north, hopefully giving Puerto Rico a break from the very worst winds. But with top sustained winds still holding at 185 mph and gusts recorded up to 225 mph, even something less than a direct hit still stands to cause considerable damage. This is still a dangerous, life-threatening storm, and anyone on Puerto Rico should immediately seek appropriate shelter if they haven’t done so already.
5:00 PM AST Wed Sep 6
Moving: WNW at 16 mph
Min pressure: 914 mb
Max sustained: 185 mph
Several hundred miles behind Irma, the rapidly strengthening Jose has crossed the boundary between Tropical Storm and Hurricane. The maximum sustained winds in Hurricane Jose are now 75 mph, with the central pressure dropping to 994mb. Both those numbers may seem puny compared to Irma, but Jose has become better organized over the last 12 hours and there are reasons for concern. Previous models had expected Jose to turn sharply northward, but the storm is currently continuing along a similar track to Irma and revised models are indicating that any turn to the north may occur later than previously expected, making Jose more of a potential threat.
And … Katia. Katia remains off the coast of Mexico. It’s more or less holding in place, wobbling around one area of the Gulf. However, it is becoming better organized and is expected to reach hurricane strength by Friday. Thankfully, Katia is not expected to move far and should expend itself after moving over land in Veracruz state. Fifteen inches or more of rain may result in local flooding or mudslides.
The Weather Channel has reported at least two deaths resulting from Irma’s path across the Leeward Islands.
There’s a reason I’ve not included extensive “spaghetti” predictions in these updates. Mostly that’s because many of those predictions are simply not very good. They’re based off poor assumptions that have been shown average hundreds of miles from reality in previous storms, or they’re just averages of multiple simple predictions, or they’re otherwise proven unreliable. Even the best of the bunch (the European model and the NHC model) are often very, very wrong beyond three or four days. It’s a challenge that has lots and lots of transistors running hot at the moment.
Predicting Hurricane Irma’s path over the next few days will be harder thanks to shifting, high-elevation weather patterns that will determine whether Florida takes a direct hit or is spared the full wrath of the monster storm.
Even the best predictions disagree right now on whether Irma’s eye will pass completely north of Cuba, or whether it will pass at least partially over land. They don’t agree on when, where, or how hard the storm will hit Florida. Right now, there’s so much going on in the Atlantic and the Gulf that chaos theory is firmly in effect—a small difference can result in a large change.
With satellites, radar, jet aircraft and high-speed computers at hand, forecasters still rely on old-fashioned weather balloons to determine where Irma will wreak the most havoc. National Weather Service offices across the U.S. have doubled the number of data-gathering balloons launched daily to try and unlock the secrets of systems that could mean the difference between salvation and devastation across Florida.
If you’ve ever wondered how quickly an airline could turn around a flight, watch this …
If you are in south Florida, get out now. Do not wait to see if the forecasts are correct, because it will be too late.
Based on Irma's projected path, which includes Florida's heavily populated eastern coast, the enormous storm could create one of the largest mass evacuations in US history, CNN senior meteorologist Dave Hennen said. Miami-Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties combined have about 6 million people.