Hurricane Irma battered the Florida Keys on Sunday morning.\u00a0 At 9:00 a.m. EDT on Sunday morning the center of Hurricane Irma was located at latitude 24.5\u00b0N and longitude 81.5\u00b0W which put it about 30 miles (50 km) east-northeast of Key West, Florida.\u00a0 Irma was moving toward the north-northwest at 8 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 130 m.p.h. (215 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 150 m.p.h. (240 km\/h).\u00a0 Hurricane Irma was a Category 4 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale.\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 929 mb.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning was in effect for the portion of the coast from Fernandina Beach to Indian Pass, Florida including the Florida Keys and Lake Okeechobee.\u00a0\u00a0 A Hurricane Watch was in effect for the portion of the coast from Fernandina Beach, Florida to Edisto Beach, South Carolina.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Warning is in effect for the portion of the coast from Fernandina Beach to South Santee River, South Carolina and from Indian Pass to the Okaloosa\/Walton County line.<\/p>\n
A Hurricane Warning is in effect for the Cuban provinces of La Habana and Matanzas.\u00a0 A Tropical Storm Watch is in effect for Bimini and Grand Bahama Island.<\/p>\n
An outer eyewall started to wrap around the original eye of Hurricane Irma, but Irma did not go through an eyewall repacement cycle.\u00a0 The original eyewall remained intact and the strongest winds were occurring in that eyewall.\u00a0 The uncompleted formation of an outer eyewall did result in an increase in the size of Hurricane Irma.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extend out about 80 miles (130 km) from the center of circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extend out over 200 miles (320 km) from the center.<\/p>\n
The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) for Hurricane Irma was 25.1.\u00a0 The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) was 24.2 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) was 49.3.\u00a0 Hurricane Irma is not quite as strong as Hurricane Charley was when Charley hit southwest Florida.\u00a0 However, Hurricane Irma is much bigger than Charley was.\u00a0 Hurricane Irma is stronger than Hurricane Wilma was when Wilma hit south Florida in 2005.\u00a0 Irma is a little smaller than Wilma was.<\/p>\n
Carysfort Reef Light near Key Largo reported a wind gust of 93 m.p.h. (150 km\/h).\u00a0 Hurricane Irma is causing winds to hurricane force over much of the Florida Keys.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force are occurring in areas around Miami, Florida.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Irma has turned toward the north.\u00a0 The core of Hurricane Irma could make a landfall on the southwest coast of Florida between Everglades City and Naples, Florida later this afternoon.\u00a0 Hurricane Irma could move northward near the west coast of Florida.\u00a0 The center of Hurricane Irma could reach the Tampa\/St. Petersburg area and Central Florida on Sunday night.<\/p>\n
Hurricane Irma is large and dangerous hurricane.\u00a0 It is capable of causing widespread extensive damage.\u00a0 There are likely to be widespread power outages.\u00a0 Irma will also generate a storm surge of 15 feet (5 meters) in some locations.\u00a0 Irma will drop locally heavy rain and flooding could occur in some places.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Hurricane Irma battered the Florida Keys on Sunday morning.\u00a0 At 9:00 a.m. EDT on Sunday morning the center of Hurricane Irma was located at latitude 24.5\u00b0N and longitude 81.5\u00b0W which put it about 30 miles (50 km) east-northeast of Key West, Florida.\u00a0 Irma was moving toward the north-northwest at 8 m.p.h.\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind […]<\/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":[208,205,384,145,51,98,801,650,100,99,97],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762"}],"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=4762"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4764,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4762\/revisions\/4764"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4762"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4762"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4762"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}