Hurricane Irma bears down on Caribbean
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 dangerous 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 late Tuesday afternoon as it approached the Caribbean from the east, according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Four other storms have had winds that strong in the overall Atlantic region, but they were in the Caribbean Sea or the Gulf of Mexico, which are usually home to warmer waters that fuel cyclones. Hurricane Allen hit 190 mph in 1980, while 2005’s Wilma, 1988’s Gilbert and a 1935 great Florida Key storm all had 185 mph winds.
Irma is so strong because of the unusually warm waters for that part of 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.
The center of Irma was about 130 miles east of Antigua and about 135 miles east-southeast of Barbuda, prompting an ominous warning from officials as the airport closed.
People in the twoisland nation should seek protection from Irma’s “onslaught,” officials warned in a statement, closing with: “May God protect us all.”
Several small islands were directly in the path of the storm. In addition to Barbuda, they included Anguilla, a small, lowlying British island 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.
The storm was moving west at 15 mph, and 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 and reaches the Florida Straits, 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.