Category 5 Hurricane Irma bearing down on Caribbean
185 mph winds are strongest recorded for Atlantic storm.
SAN JUAN, PUERTO RICO — Wielding the most powerful winds ever recorded for a storm in the Atlantic Ocean, Hurricane Irma bore down Tuesday on the Leeward Islands of the northeast Caribbean on a forecast path that could take it toward Florida over the weekend.
The storm, a top-of-thescale Category 5, posed an immediate threat to the small islands of the northern Leewards, including Antigua and Barbuda, as well as the British and U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico.
“The Leeward Islands are going to get destroyed,” warned Colorado State University meteorology professor Phil Klotzbach, a noted hurricane expert. “I just pray that this thing wobbles and misses them. This is a serious storm.”
Irma had maximum sustained winds of 185 mph as it approached the Caribbean from the east, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Four other recorded storms have had winds that strong in the overall Atlantic region but they were in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, where warmer waters fuel larger cyclones. Hurricane Allen hit 190 mph in 1980, while 2005’s Wilma, 1988’s Gilbert and the 1935 Labor Day Storm that struck the Florida Keys all had 185 mph winds.
Irma is so strong because of unusually warm waters in the Atlantic. Hurricane-force winds extended outward up to 60 miles from the center and tropical storm-force winds extended outward up to 175 miles.
People in Antigua and Barbuda, a nation comprised of two islands, should seek protection from Irma’s “onslaught,” officials warned in a statement, closing with: “May God protect us all.”
Several other small islands were directly in the path of the storm, including Anguilla, a low-lying British territory of about 15,000 people.
Authorities there converted three churches and a school into shelters as they prepared for a big storm surge and the full brunt of the winds.
“People normally go to friends and family during a storm. We’ll see,” said Melissa Meade, director of the Disaster Management Department. “We’ll find out soon enough.”
As the storm moved west, the hurricane center said there was a growing possibility its effects could be felt in Florida later this week and over the weekend.
If it stays on the forecast track, it will reach the Florida Straits, where the water there is warm enough that the already “intense” storm could become much worse with wind speeds potentially reaching 225 mph, warned Kerry Emanuel, an MIT meteorology professor.
“People who are living there (the Florida Keys) or have property there are very scared, and they should be,” Emanuel said.
The storm’s eye was expected to pass about 50 miles from Puerto Rico late Wednesday.
“Puerto Rico has not seen a hurricane of this magnitude in almost 100 years,” said Carlos Anselmi, a National Weather Service meteorologist in San Juan.
For the U.S. “this looks like at this point that it’s very hard to miss,” said University of Miami senior hurricane researcher Brian McNoldy. “You’d be hard pressed to find any model that doesn’t have some impact on Florida. Whether it’s the worst case or next-to-worst case, it doesn’t look good.”