With each new update, the outlook worsens …
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, Florida has issued its latest advisory for Hurricane Irma – the category five monster that’s spinning ever closer to the continental United States.
As of the 5:00 p.m. AST advisory, Irma was located approximately 55 miles east-northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico – moving in a west-northwesterly direction at roughly sixteen miles per hour. The storm was packing maximum sustained winds of 185 miles per hour – making it the second strongest cyclone ever recorded in the Atlantic Ocean (Hurricane Allen clocked in at 190 miles per hour back in August of 1980).
It’s not just Irma’s ferocity that has forecasters worried, though. It’s where the system is headed.
At present, the storm appears poised to unleash its full fury on the east coast of the United States – with Florida, Georgia and the Carolinas directly in its projected path.
Take a look …
(Click to view)
(Via: NOAA)
If this forecast track holds, Irma would commence its destructive march up the east coast sometime this weekend – potentially arriving in the Palmetto State sometime late Monday afternoon.
That’s a path eerily similar to the one taken by Hurricane Matthew last October.
Obviously there is still plenty of variability in the forecast models, but this is clearly a system South Carolinians need to begin preparing for.
***
WANNA SOUND OFF?
Got something you’d like to say in response to one of our stories? Please feel free to submit your own guest column or letter to the editor via-email HERE. Got a tip for us? CLICK HERE. Got a technical question? CLICK HERE.
Banner via Text