Irma’s slight weakening expected to be brief

Irma may weaken before she gets stronger.

Overnight, dry air and moderate water temperatures slowed the storm’s rapid intensification from Wednesday slightly. An eyewall replacement early Friday also led the storm to drop to a Category 2. In their 11 a.m. EDT advisory Friday, forecasters noted that increasing wind shear over the eastern Atlantic could cause the storm’s intensity to waver over the coming days.

However, Irma will likely begin regaining strength after the weekend as it crosses warmer seas, with sustained winds of 125 mph possible, they said.

Over the next five days, the storm is expected to continue on a west, northwesterly track that should bring it near the Leeward Islands next week. Impacts to Florida, and the U.S. coast, are less certain.

A high pressure ridge has continued to build and is likely to start turning the storm to the west later Friday, forecasters said. An upperlevel low is also expected to slide to the south, on the east side of the high, which will determine just how far south Irma makes it before turning to the northwest early next week.

But 10 days out is still a long time to predict tracks with any certainty, said former hurricane center director Rick Knabb, now a hurricane expert at the Weather Channel.

“You’re going to see model run after model run changing from cycle to cycle, and some are going to imply greater threats to Florida,” he said. “We all have a tendency, and I do it too, to try to figure out which one is right.”