Hurricane Irma likely to drop to Category 4 upon landfall in Florida: NHC
Hurricane Irma is likely to be downgraded to a Category 4 storm by the time it makes landfall in Florida, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said on Thursday.
Irma,
at present a Category 5 storm packing maximum sustained winds of 180
miles (285 km) per hour, is moving off the northern coast of the
Dominican Republic, the NHC said.
It has
become a little less organized over the past few hours but the threat of
direct hurricane impacts in Florida over the weekend and early next
week continues to increase, it said.
Hurricane watches were in effect for the northwestern Bahamas and much of Cuba.
Irma,
one of the most powerful Atlantic storms in a century, killed eight
people on the Caribbean island of Saint Martin and left Barbuda
devastated on Thursday.
Meanwhile, a hurricane
swirling in the Gulf of Mexico, Katia, which is about 195 miles (310 km)
northeast of Veracruz with maximum sustained winds of 80 miles per hour
(130 km per hour), is likely to gain near major hurricane strength by
landfall, the NHC said.
A third hurricane in
the Atlantic, Jose, has strengthened slightly and is expected to
intensify further over the next 48 hours, it added.
Hurricane
Jose is about 815 miles (1,310 km) east of the Lesser Antilles with
maximum sustained winds of 90 miles per hour (150 km per hour), the
Miami-based weather forecaster said.
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