National Hurricane Center
Hurricane Irma continues on its path to the U.S. mainland coast, with Florida squarely within its crosshairs according to the most recent projected paths. And now it’s taking a westerly turn, putting Florida more squarely in the path. The storm is predicted to be near the southern Florida peninsula by Sunday morning and has already re-strengthened to a Category 5. Tropical storm winds extend far outside the hurricane, so Florida can expect to start feeling the effects of the hurricane sooner on Saturday.
The map above shows a cone estimating the probable path of the center of Irma. It does not reflect the size of the storm, and hazardous conditions may be felt outside of this cone. The hurricane warnings are in red above, and tropical storm warnings are in blue. Hurricane watches are in pink and tropical storm watches are in yellow.
See Heavy’s latest story about Hurricane Irma Maps here.
Here’s an experimental map showing when tropical storm force winds will be felt. As you can see from the map, southernmost Florida will begin feeling tropical storm force winds Saturday morning. Georgia can expect to start feeling tropical storm force winds on Sunday night.
National Hurricane Center
Wind speed probabilities can be viewed in this map:
National Hurricane Center
The wind speeds you’re seeing to the right are from Hurricane Jose. These probabilities are for 2 p.m. Eastern Friday through 2 p.m. Eastern Wednesday.
Next is the most current map from the National Hurricane Center estimating where the center of the hurricane will go. As you can see, they are currently tracking it to the western side of Florida, west of Miami, But this can change quickly at any time, and because of the size of the hurricane, many areas will feel hurricane winds even if the eye doesn’t pass over:
National Hurricane Center
You might also be interested in seeing rainfall potential maps for Irma, from the National Hurricane Center. This map below estimates rainfall potential from Friday evening through Wednesday at 8 p.m. Eastern. According to this latest estimate, the southernmost part of the Florida peninsula is estimated to get 10 to 15 inches in that time period:
National Hurricane Center
Next is the Dvorak satellite view of Irma, which shows that Irma appears to be intensifying again:
@RyanMaue The Dvorak satellite view is even more dramatic visually
Unfortunately, the GOES-16 loop also shows possible intensifying:
And the latest recon estimates of surface winds for Irma’s northern eyewall show it may have a chance at strengthening into a Category 5 again:
Recon estimates of 163mph surface winds in #Irma‘s northern eyewall suggest that Irma may be a Cat. 5 hurricane again. Extremely dangerous.
Here you can see the path of Irma since it formed, from NASA’s CloudSat:
Video: Powerful #HurricaneIrma Seen in 3D by NASA’s CloudSat
t.co/QISrgZ5UTr
More maps of Irma:
Latest GOES16 prelim non-op IR shot of #HurricaneIrma w/ recon acft mapped wind fields from 18Z & actual acft route @CIRA_CSU #Irma
Watch Irma live with these videos below:
