Very dangerous Hurricane Irma reached category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Irma was located at latitude 12.3\u00b0N and longitude 39.1\u00b0W which put it about 225 miles (365 km) east of Antigua.\u00a0 Irma was moving toward the west at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 180 m.p.h. (285 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 210 m.p.h. (340 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 931 mb.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Warnings are in effect for Antigua, Barbuda, Anguilla, Montserrat, St. Kitts, Nevis, Saba, St. Eustatius, Sint Maarten, St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, the British Virgin Islands, the U.S. Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Vieques and Culebra.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Warnings are in effect for Guadeloupe and Dominica.\u00a0 Hurricane Watches are in effect for Guadeloupe, the southeastern Bahamas including the Acklins, Crooked Islands, Long Cay, the Inaguas, Mayaguana, and the Ragged Islands.\u00a0 A Hurricane Watch is also in effect for the portion of the the coast from Cabo Engano, Dominican Republic to Le Mole St. Nicholas, Haiti.\u00a0 Tropical Storm Watches are in effect for the portion of the coast from Le Mole St. Nicholas to Port Au Prince, Haiti and from Cabo Engano to Isla Saona, Dominican Republic.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Irma intensified rapidly after the completion of the most recent eyewall replacement cycle.\u00a0 The structure evolved in a large classic Cape Verde hurricane.\u00a0 The is a large circular eye at the center of circulation.\u00a0 A ring of very strong thunderstorms surrounds the eye and the strongest winds are occurring in that ring.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms are revolving around the core of Hurricane Irma.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extend out about 60 miles (95 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extend out about 160 miles (260 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Irma is 44.1.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 19.8 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 63.9.\u00a0 Hurricane Irma is as strong as Hurricane Rita was in 2005, but Irma is just slightly smaller than Rita was.\u00a0 Hurricane Irma is capable of causing widespread catastrophic damage.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Irma is moving through an environment that is very favorable for hurricanes.\u00a0 Irma is moving over water where the Sea Surface Temperature is near 30\u00b0C.\u00a0 The upper level winds are weak and there is little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Hurricane Irma will likely remain very strong as long as it stays over water.\u00a0 Additional eyewall replacement cycles could occur and they would result in fluctuations in the intensity of Hurricane Irma.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Irma is being steered to the west by a very strong subtropical high over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 Irma is expected to turn a little more toward the west-northwest as it moves closer to the western end of the high.\u00a0 On its anticipated track Hurricane Irma will move across the northern Leeward Islands during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 It will be near Puerto Rico on Wednesday and near the Dominican Republic on Thursday.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Irma is an very dangerous hurricane.\u00a0 It is capable of producing widespread catastrophic damage.\u00a0 Hurricane Irma will also drop extremely heavy rain and flooding is very possible.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Very dangerous Hurricane Irma reached category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Tuesday morning.\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Tuesday the center of Hurricane Irma was located at latitude 12.3\u00b0N and longitude 39.1\u00b0W which put it about 225 miles (365 km) east of Antigua.\u00a0 Irma was moving toward the west at 14 m.p.h. (22 km\/h).\u00a0 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[208,205,145,144,51,98,26,801,650,140,100,22,99,97,143],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4716"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4717,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4716\/revisions\/4717"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4716"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4716"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4716"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}