Hurricane Florence gains strength

Hurricane Florence has rapidly intensified on its path toward the East Coast and is now a Category 4 with 140-mph winds, the National Hurricane Center said at 5 p.m. Monday. The storm could soon be on the brink of a Category 5.

“None of the guidance suggest that Florence has peaked in intensity,” the Hurricane Center said, predicting that its peak winds will reach 155 mph today, just 2 mph shy of Category 5. It expects to issue hurricane watches for parts of the Southeast and Mid-atlantic coast this morning.

Not only has the storm exploded in intensity, but its zone of hurricane-force winds approximately doubled in size Monday.

Computer-model forecasts generally project the storm to make landfall between northern South Carolina and North Carolina’s Outer Banks as a Category 4 on Thursday, although shifts in the track are possible and storm impacts will expand great distances beyond where landfall occurs. Given the uncertainty and time it takes to evacuate, officials in North Carolina have issued mandatory evacuation orders for Dare County and Hatteras Island.

Like Hurricane Harvey, which stalled over Texas in 2017, Florence could linger over the Southeast for several days after landfall. Forecast models suggest that more than two feet of rain could fall over the higher elevations of the Carolinas and Virginia, which would generate dangerous flooding downstream. The flooding might be similar to what the Carolinas experienced during Hurricane Matthew in 2016.