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| Extremely dangerous Hurricane Irma heading westbound toward the northern Leeward Islands Tuesday. |
Irma this morning is a Category 5 beast, the worst you can get, with maximum sustained winds of 180 mph, gusting to 215 mph. It's the strongest hurricane on record that's occured in the Atlantic Ocean outside of the Caribbean Sea or Gulf of Mexico.
Worse, the National Hurricane Center says Irma will remain a Category 4 or 5 storm all the way to somewhere near Florida by the weekend.
The further out in time you get with the forecasts for Irma, the more uncertainties arise in its exact track, and that's normal for all hurricanes.
We do know that by tonight or tomorrow, the northern Leeward Islands are going to be crushed by perhaps the worst hurricane in their history, as Irma will still probably be a Category 5 storm then.
Next in line are the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, where hurricane warnings are up tomorrow, when Irma is expected to hit those islands very, very hard.
Also preparing for a possible disaster from Irma is Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas and Cuba. There, people are stocking up on emergency supplies now, and beginning to evacuate vulnerable seaside locations. Since Irma is a few days away from these locations, its unclear exactly which sections of these nations will get hit.
Then we get to Florida. It's still possible Irma could veer away from the Sunshine State, but it's looking more and more likely Florida will be affected by Irma, and could well take a direct hit from the storm while it's a Category 4 storm.
Category 4 hurricanes have sustained winds of at least 130 mph, and category 5 hurricanes have winds of 157 mph or greater.
I'll caution again that hurricane forecasts for what will happen four or more days out are often very inaccurate, so there's no guarantee at all that Florida is screwed.
However, you saw the destruction to towns in the path of Hurricane Harvey in Texas that were hit when Harvey was a Category 4. This is before the epic floods started. The damage in places like Rockport, Texas looked like that of a major tornado, except covering a much larger area than a tornado would.
Harvey's Category 4 winds struck an area that had a relatively sparse population. Now imagine if the same thing hit a major Florida city like Miami. Besides the winds, the storm surge would devastate Miami, since its elevation is so low.
I don't know whether Irma will hit Miami, or some other place in Florida or miss the state altogether, but you can understand why they're very nervous there.
No evacuations order have yet been issued for any part of Florida, because it's too soon to figure out who to evacuate. Florida Gov. Rick Scott has declared a state of emergency for all of Florida, so that emergency managers have the resources to start gearing up now if not sooner.
Still, some people in Florida have already had enough and are leaving the coast, or even the entire state before the mad rush begins.
Some of my Vermont readers are probably beginning to wonder if Irma will have any effect up here, and the answer is nobody has any clue. I suppose it's possible it could come north with heavy rain and gusty winds eventually, but that's just pure speculation.
OTHER TROPICAL TROUBLE
Another strong disturbance is hot on the heels of Irma in the eastern Atlantic has become Tropical Storm Jose, and it's likely to become a pretty powerful hurricane in its own right.
While nobody knows for certain, it appears Jose might head toward the northwest and miss North America, which would be a good thing. However, there's a chance it could hit the northern Leeward Islands, which I've noted are going to get blasted by Irma.
Sigh.
There's also a disturbance developing in the Bay of Campeche in the Gulf of Mexico. That's where Harvey came from so I'm sure people in Texas are not liking this. However, if this disturbance develops into a tropical storm, it will probably meander around for awhile, and the maybe head west into Mexico, and miss Texas by a wide margin.
At least we hope so.
SEVERE WEATHER RISK TODAY NORTHEAST
Severe thunderstorm are definitely a risk today in much of the Northeast, including here in Vermont.
NOAA's Storm Prediction Center has a slight risk of severe storms in central New England, including the southeastern half of Vermont today. The slight risk extends southwestward into eastern New York and into eastern Pennsylania and New Jersey.
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| Severe thunderstorms are possible today in the yellow shaded area. Areas in dark green have a very slight chance of severe storms. |
Damaging winds and hail are the primary threats in the slight risk area, but we can't rule out a brief tornado in that region, either.
Some thunderstorms will produce torrential rains, so there's a risk of local flash floods or street flooding in a few locations.
It's a little late in the season for severe weather in New England, but it does happen in September and October from time to time.
One of New England's worst tornadoes struck Windsor Locks, Connecticut in October, 1979 for example. That one killed three people and injured dozens.
The cold front causing today's potential severe weather will slow down to a crawl over eastern New England over the next couple of days. Heavy rain will fall there, especially in Maine, where there could be a few flooding problems by Thursday.
WESTERN FIRES
We've had a lot of hazy, smoky skies over Vermont for much of the past month as major wildfires continue to blossom and grow across Canada and the western United States.
The fires got worse out west in the past few days as a heat wave accompanied by very dry air and gusty winds blew fires up into big conflagrations. We'll continue to see smoky or hazy skies for awhile. Thick haze has also enveloped the Upper Midwest from these fires.
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| Forest fire in the Columbia River Gorge. Photo by Hal Bernton/Seattle Times. |
But that's no big deal. The actual fires are a big deal and are causing big time havoc. About 140 hikers had to be rescued from the Columbia River Gorge Trail in Oregon when a wildfire approached them.
Firefighters are trying to protect a 2,700-year-old grove of giant sequoias near Yosemite National Park.
The largest wildfire in Los Angeles history burned around Burbank this past weekend.
An odd batch of gusty, rainy thunderstorms helped tamp the fires down, but one of the storms caused a destructive microburst in Santa Barbara.
There were so many fires burning in Washington State that ash fell like snow in Seattle, says the Seattle Times.
In Canada, fires forced evacuations in British Columbia and Saskatchewan.
Phew, busy times in the weather department lately, huh? And it looks like it will continue. Let's all hope we don't have any more mega disasters out of this spate of wild weather.
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