Hurricane Irma could hit U.S. — or curve out to sea

Hurricane Irma has regained Category 3 intensity, and additional strengthening is likely in the coming days as it tracks west across the Atlantic.

Environmental conditions could even support Irma becoming a rare Category 5 hurricane at some point, the first since 2016’s Matthew.

Within the next five days, the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Dominican Republic, Haiti and the Bahamas are most definitely at risk (at least a close encounter if not a direct landfall).

Beyond then, forecast confidence drops dramatically. Some models curve Irma back out to sea before reaching the continental U.S., but a significant percentage of models have Irma striking the U.S. East Coast as early as Saturday.

The center of Irma is still about 900 miles east of the Leeward Islands, 2,150 miles east-southeast of Miami, and 2,150 miles southeast of Wilmington, N.C.

The National Hurricane Center is predicting Irma to pass over or near the Leeward Islands on Wednesday, then to be near the eastern Bahamas by Friday. Beyond that, the spread in model tracks grows, but it usually does at such long lead times. Hurricane watches may be issued for the Leeward Islands.

The trend over the past couple of days has been to keep Irma farther south for longer, bringing it closer to the U.S., but still turning toward the north near the coast.

With this in mind, locations from south Florida up to New England are most definitely still in play and need to be paying close attention. With the shape of the coastline, a slight difference in timing of that northward turn makes all the difference.