Maria ‘extremely dangerous’
Maelstrom’s might keeps growing as it advances on islands
Hurricane Maria was upgraded to an “extremely dangerous” Category 5 storm with 160-mph winds Monday as it barreled toward islands already battered by Hurricane Irma. Florida could be in its crosshairs next week,
Warnings and watches lit up across the Caribbean on Monday as Hurricane Maria gained strength and roared toward islands already hobbled by the carnage of Hurricane Irma.
Maria, which grew to a Category 5 hurricane Monday evening, had maximum sustained winds of
160 mph.
The storm made landfall in the Caribbean island of Dominica at
9:15 p.m. and should move across Guadeloupe overnight Monday before roaring toward the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico on Tuesday.
Additional rapid strengthening was forecast during the following
48 hours.
Hurricane warnings were in effect for the entire island of Puerto Rico and a host of other Caribbean islands, including both the U.S. Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands, Guadeloupe, Dominica, St. Kitts, Nevis, and Montserrat.
Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rossello said the government prepared hundreds of shelters capable of housing more than 100,000 evacuees if necessary.
It was too early to determine whether the storm would have an impact on the U.S. East Coast — and any threat would not be until early next week — but a strike on Florida is a possibility.
“We may luck out, and it turns north before reaching Florida,” AccuWeather meteorologist Dave Samuhel said. “Unfortunately, it looks like blocking high pressure could force it into Florida.”
“This storm promises to be catastrophic for our island,” said Ernesto Morales of the National Weather Service in San Juan. “All of Puerto Rico will experience hurricane-force winds.”
First, the U.S. Virgin Islands probably will face “at least a glancing blow, if not a full-on landfall” late Tuesday or early Wednesday, Samuhel said.
On St. John’s, the smallest of
the U.S. Virgin Islands, people lined up to flee the storm. Irma blasted across the island Sept. 7, a Category 5 storm with sustained winds of 185 mph. Homes and businesses were blown apart and power is likely to be out for months.
Haiti and the Dominican Republic could see Maria’s wrath
Wednesday.
An impact on the East Coast will depend on steering currents in the upper atmosphere over the western Atlantic and the eastern USA that can’t be determined more than a week in advance, according to the Weather Channel.
Hurricane Jose’s 75-mph sustained winds will continue to bring rip currents and rough surf to the U.S. East Coast over the next several days.
Tropical storm warnings were posted along the southeastern New England coast, including most of the Rhode Island and Massachusetts coastlines.
“Coastlines from North Carolina to southern New England are in for a long period of rough surf and an increasing risk of beach erosion,” Weather Underground meteorologist Bob Henson said. “If Jose were to make landfall, it could end up producing significant surge even as a post-tropical storm.”
Jose will produce heavy rain as it passes near southern New England and the Mid-Atlantic on Tuesday and Wednesday, the hurricane center said.
The hurricane center said the center of Jose was forecast to pass well offshore of the Outer Banks of North Carolina on Monday, east of the Delmarva peninsula Tuesday and east of the New Jersey coast on Wednesday.