Hurricane Irma continues to strengthen much faster than pretty much any computer model predicted as of yesterday or even this morning. Per the National Hurricane Center's (NHC) latest update, Irma is currently a Cat-3 storm with sustained winds of 115 mph but is expected to strengthen to a devastating Cat-5 with winds that could top out at 180 mph or more. Here is the latest from the NHC as of 5PM EST:
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has just updated its forecast for what it is now referring to as a "rapidly intensifying" Category 2 hurricane in the Eastern Atlantic ocean and the results look disastrous for a large swath of the Caribbean and Southeastern United States. Here is a brief summary of Hurricane Irma from the National Hurricane Center released at 11AM EST:
Tropical Storm Harvey made its second landfall near Cameron, La. on Wednesday after slamming Houston with a staggering 50 inches of rain, the largest rainfall ever recorded in the Continental US. Given the unprecedented devastation, which will likely leave large swaths of Houston, America’s fourth-largest city, uninhabitable for weeks if not months, storm-watchers have scrambled to revise their initial forecasts for damages.
Update: According to the NHS, Atlantic Tropical Storm Irma has formed, and could be a Hurricane by Friday. With top winds of 50 miles (80 kilometers) per hour, Irma formed 420 miles west of Cabo Verde moving west at 13 mph, the U.S. National Hurricane Center in an 11 a.m. N.Y. time advisory.
According to Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground, computer forecast models disagree on its ultimate track but a U.S. strike later in September cannot be ruled out.
Five days after it first plowed into southwest Texas as a category 4 hurricane, Tropical Storm Harvey has made second landfall west of Cameron on the border between Texas and Louisiana, early Wednesday according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm, which has already pummeled the city of Houston with more than 50 inches of rain – a new record for the contiguous US, according to the Wall Street Journal – has left at least 18 dead, including two Houston police officers, and forced tens of thousands of people from their homes.