JOSE’S IN A HURRI
'Cane will miss city, but bring rip currents
Stay away, José! After a week hovering around the Bermuda Triangle, Hurricane José is on the move — but for now he’s projected to stay well out to sea and safely away from the East Coast.
José will likely be downgraded to a tropical storm when it creeps up the Atlantic and past New Jersey and New York on Tuesday and Wednesday, with winds predicted at between 39 and 73 mph.
Its forecast “cone” won’t even graze the eastern tip of Long Island, the National Hurricane Center in Miami predicted by 11 p.m. Saturday.
North Carolina to New England should monitor the storm’s progress, the center urged.
But by late Saturday, the center was predicting that the worst José will give the East Coast is a good soaking and some dangerous rip currents.
That’s a far better outlook than forecasts from Saturday morning, which had José taking a swipe at the New York by early Tuesday.
José has weakened since last week, when it was a Category 4 hurricane with 145-mph winds.
By Saturday night, it was a Cat- egory 1, with maximum sustained winds of 80 mph.
“There’s a potential for a good soaking for New York City, and possibly points north and west depending on the track,” said AccuWeather senior meteorologist Frank Strait.
Mayor de Blasio tweeted Saturday that the city is “closely monitoring” José, and urged residents to know if they are in a flood zone.
José spared the Caribbean islands hurt most by Hurricane Irma after that monster storm killed 38 people.
The ravaged paradises may not be so lucky this week, with two new storms headed their way.
The storms — Lee and Maria — loomed in the eastern Atlantic on Saturday, reports said.
Lee is expected to head west without gaining much strength, but Maria is hard on its heels.
Now a tropical depression, Maria is expected to be upgraded to a tropical storm and could reach hurricane status as it approaches the Caribbean.
The new depressions have prompted a tropical storm watch for the islands of St. Lucia, Martinique, Guadeloupe, Barbados and St. Vincent and the Grenadines.