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[Ed note: for up-to-date info, see also: NOAA National Hurricane Center, Mike's Weather Page, windy.com, NWS - Hourly Weather Forecast Graph - Tampa, and NWS - Hourly Weather Forecast Graph - Miami.]
At 8:28AM September 5, Zero Hedge reported
Irma is now the [strongest] hurricane [ever] in the Atlantic basin, outside of the Caribbean Sea and Gulf of Mexico, in [US National Hurricane Center] records.
[...] meteorologist Eric Holthaus writes that Hurricane Irma is now expected to *exceed* the theoretical maximum intensity for a storm in its environment, or as he puts it "Redefining the rules".
[...] Irma's current path--headed straight for Florida--has prompted the state to prepare for the "catastrophic" system.
Unlike Harvey, which caused widespread damage, power outages and flooding and taking almost a fifth of U.S. oil refining capacity offline, Irma is a bigger threat to agriculture, with orange juice futures surging.
[...] Florida is the world's largest producer of orange juice after Brazil. About two-thirds of the state's citrus crop is located in the lower two-thirds of the peninsula.
[...] Airlines have canceled flights across the Caribbean and are adding planes to evacuate tourists, while cruise-line stocks have tumbled.
[...] Only three Category 5 hurricanes have hit the contiguous 48 U.S. states, [said Bob Henson, a meteorologist with Weather Underground:] The Labor Day Hurricane of 1935 that devastated the Florida Keys, Hurricane Camille in 1969, and Hurricane Andrew that cut across Florida in 1992. Andrew was originally classified as a Category 4 storm only to be upgraded years later after further analysis.
"It is obviously a rare breed", Henson said. "We are in rare territory."
At 12:37PM September 5, Heavy.com reported
The Florida governor has declared a state of emergency as Hurricane Irma reaches a Category 5 storm. The Florida Keys are currently in the hurricane's path, although the storm remains unpredictable.
[...] Irma has [...] maximum sustained winds [of] 185 mph. It was moving west at 14 mph and is about 270 miles east of Antigua. The Florida Keys are in the projected path of the hurricane, according to September 4 late evening forecasts.
(Score: 5, Informative) by stretch611 on Saturday September 09 2017, @06:40AM (2 children)
Of course, Irma is just one storm. While it is a huge and rare category 5 storm, it can be just a random event.
Then again, there is also Jose, which is a large category 4 storm following a path similar to Irma.
And also Katia, which was a category 1 that just hit land in Mexico and downgraded to a tropical storm.
And lets not forget Harvey which hit land as a Category 4 and devastated Texas and Louisiana, but of course that was so long ago... almost 2 weeks now...
Now with 5 covid vaccine shots/boosters altering my DNA :P
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday September 09 2017, @07:36AM
September is the peak month for hurricanes. It isn't that unusual to have three tropical storm systems at once from Africa to the Gulf of Mexico.
(Score: 2) by Entropy on Sunday September 10 2017, @05:30AM
Contrary to some items making the rounds of the Twitterverse, El Nino's are "Kryptonite for hurricanes." The Mercury News reports: "Irma has ripped a path of misery through the Caribbean and is aiming at Florida, but the first seed for its monster size and force was planted on the other side of the world more than six months ago. It happened innocently enough, when a widely anticipated El Nino failed to materialize over the Pacific Ocean. In time, that cleared a path for a hurricane to form in the Atlantic that grew to the size of the state of New York with winds topping 185 miles per hour. El Nino occurs when the Pacific heats up and flusters the atmosphere, setting off a chain reaction that causes wind shear across the Atlantic. Shear is wind blowing in different directions or speeds at various altitudes, and it can be Kryptonite for hurricanes. As powerful as they are, tropical cyclones have delicate structures. Shear can tear them apart. A budding storm can't get started and an established storm can't get strong."
Reference: http://www.mercurynews.com/2017/09/07/how-did-irma-happen-blame-el-ninos-absence/ [mercurynews.com]
So I suppose it wasn't warm enough to produce an El Nino event..but that's a sign of global warming. Because as we've already seen hot? Global warming. Cold? Global warming. Scientific ship sent to investigate global warming stuck in record ice? Global warming.