Hurricane Irma: September 4,Update B

In the time it took me to fly from Atlanta to Los Angeles, Hurricane Irma grew a little stronger…

Officially she is now a mid-to-strong cat 4 storm with winds of 145mph (cat 4 range: 130-156mph) and central pressure of 939mb. Not much else to report since the last update really – she is still on track to get to the Leeward Islands tomorrow, and you can now see them in the satellite imagery (the fact that you can see the eye this clearly in the visible imagery at night and it is only fluctuating slightly is an indication that she is definitely in the cat 4 range - approaching cat 5):

She is a large storm - for scale, here’s the infrared satellite imagery over the entire Atlantic:

She is still tracking west at 13mph and is expected to make a WNW turn within the next few hours – all the models are in agreement on this. I don’t quite see it in the information I have. I would have said she would continue west or slightly south of west a little longer, or slowed down a little more, but at 1 day out, I go with the NHC now! The exact path of the eye is not known so whether or not it will make a direct hit on one of the islands tomorrow night is uncertain, but the storm is large enough that they will still experience a hurricane. She is currently at 16.6N, 56.4W:

There are a couple of other blobs out there by the way – one in the southern Gulf of Mexico, in the Bay of Campeche, and the other one way out in the Atlantic at around 10N, 35W. I’m going to focus on Irma until they become a bit better developed.

Ciao for now,

J.

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DISCLAIMER: These remarks are just what I think/see regarding tropical storms - not the opinion of any organization I represent. If you are making an evacuation decision, please heed your local emergency management and the National Hurricane Center's official forecast and the National Weather Service announcements. This is not an official forecast. If I "run away, run away" (Monty Python), I'll let you know.