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Eye of Hurricane Irma hits the Florida Keys — here's the latest
(NOAA)
The eye of Hurricane Irma has hit Florida's lower islands, according to the National Hurricane Center.
The hurricane is expected to pummel the islands with winds of up to 130 mph.
The eye is currently 15 miles southeast of Key West.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott at 6 pm on Saturday urged Floridians in evacuation zones to leave, warning that "this is your last chance to make a good decision."
Irma slammed into several Caribbean islands as a Category 5 storm on Wednesday and Thursday, killing at least 23 people.
Many parts of Florida and Georgia are under mandatory evacuation orders.
President Donald Trump has declared a state of emergency for Florida in anticipation of the storm.
Hurricane Irma has reached the lower Florida Keys, pummelling the islands with winds reaching up to 130mph early on Sunday morning.
According to the National Hurricane Center, the eye of the storm is now 15 miles away from Key West.
The hurricane is expected to move north up Florida's Gulf Coast towards population centers including Tampa and St. Petersburg, after steamrolling several Caribbean islands and leaving at least 22 dead.
Earlier on Sunday, the storm regained strength to become a Category 4 hurricane, with the risk of life-threatening storm surges.
Hurricane warnings are currently in effect for many parts of the Florida coast, some provinces of Cuba, and the northwestern Bahamas. Florida's hurricane warnings extend from Fernandina Beach south around the peninsula to the Aucilla River, and also include the Florida Keys, Lake Okeechobee, and Florida Bay.
Irma also began spinning up funnel clouds near South Florida on Saturday evening, prompting at least one tornado to touch ground in the Fort Lauderdale suburb of Oakland Park, according to the National Weather Service. Tornado warnings were also issued for Fort Lauderdale, Coral Springs, Pompano Beach and Sunrise in Broward County, as well as parts of nearby Palm Beach and Hendry Counties, the Associated Press reported.
Storm-surge warnings are in effect from the Volusia/Brevard County line south around the peninsula to the Suwanee River, as well as in the Florida Keys and Tampa Bay.
If Irma hits Florida at high tide, water levels there are expected to rise to 10 to 15 feet above ground from Cape Sable to Captiva.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott said at a press conference Saturday evening that more than 6.5 million Floridians have been ordered to evacuate, and more than 70,000 have taken refuge in more than 385 shelters. He added that the state could see as much as 18 inches of rain, and the Florida Keys could see up to 25 inches.
"Everyone in Florida needs to find a safe place to go," Scott said, urging any residents still in evacuation zones to leave. He also urged evacuees to be patient and not return to their homes after Irma passes, until local officials confirm it is safe to do so.
More than 170,000 homes and businesses had lost power by Saturday night, according to Florida Power and Light.
"Millions of Floridians will see major hurricane impacts with deadly, deadly, deadly storm surge and life-threatening winds," he said Saturday morning. "15 feet of impact above ground level — think about that — 15 feet is devastating. It will cover your house."
President Donald Trump on Saturday evening urged everyone in Irma's path to "get out of the way."
"This is a storm of enormous destructive power," Trump said at a Cabinet meeting. "Property is replaceable, but lives are not. And safety has to come first."
Irma's intensity
(CIRA/RAMMB; GOES-16/NOAA)
Irma is one of the most powerful Atlantic hurricanes in recorded history, and has already killed at least 23 people as it wreaked havoc in the Caribbean, according to reports. The storm's winds are as powerful as those of a tornado, which can tear off roofs, level homes, toss cars, overturn trains, and uproot large trees.
At its strongest, Irma's wind speeds hovered around 185 mph, with gusts of more than 215 mph.
Initial damage from the storm was observed on Wednesday in Barbuda, an island east of Puerto Rico. Gaston Browne, the prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, said Barbuda was "totally demolished," with 90% of its buildings destroyed. Communication with the island was cut off because of the destruction. As Hurricane Jose approached the island on Friday, Barbuda officials worked to evacuate the entire population of 1,800.
Irma also destroyed an estimated 95% of buildings in parts of St. Martin and devastated popular tourist destinations in St. Barts. It slammed the Virgin Islands before passing just north of Puerto Rico. Winds were still strong enough to cut off power to half of Puerto Rico's residents, however, and reports suggest some may not regain electricity for months.
Irma is now a Category 3 storm, but officials caution that it should not be referred to as "downgraded" — it's still a catastrophic storm with major population centers in its path, and it's likely to gain more strength before making landfall in Florida.
"Irma is expected to make landfall in Florida as an extremely dangerous major hurricane, and will bring life-threatening wind impacts to much of the state regardless of the exact track of the center," NHC wrote in its Saturday morning forecast.
As seen with Hurricane Harvey, which made landfall late last month as a Category 4 hurricane but caused most of its damage with heavy rain, the number doesn't always accurately predict a storm's impact.
I fear that people will say, 'Oh, it is only Category 4 now, we are safe' ... This would be devastating and potentially deadly.
"I fear that people will say, 'Oh, it is only Category 4 now, we are safe,'" Marshall Shepherd, a meteorologist, wrote early Friday. "This would be devastating and potentially deadly. It is a Category 4 storm with a track that will bring it directly into South Florida with the most populated cities of the region on the dangerous right side of the eye."
Irma is now passing over some of the warmest water it has encountered, which could help it maintain its intensity or even pick up steam.
Irma also threatens the Caribbean and US with storm surge, a crest of water formed ahead of a storm by powerful winds. The National Hurricane Center suggests that parts of the Bahamas, for example, may see water levels rise 20 feet above a typical high tide, though forecasts differ greatly among regions.
Irma heads to Florida
The NHC's latest forecast for Irma projects the centerline of the storm to pass directly over the Florida Keys, then hit the southwestern side of the peninsula, before heading up the state's west coast and into Georgia. Regardless of exactly where the eye makes landfall, Irma is big and powerful enough to affect most of Florida. The storm is almost as large as Texas — wide enough that both coasts could experience hurricane-force winds.
(National Hurricane Center)
Although the most predictive models no longer show the center of the storm hitting Miami directly, hurricane-force winds are still likely to arrive there on Sunday.
US and state officials have been urging people to ready their emergency plans and supplies for days — and time has almost run out. Almost 7 million people have been told to evacuate, leading to traffic jams and fuel shortages across the states.
"We are running out of time ... You need to go now," Gov. Rick Scott of Florida said on CNN on Friday morning, urging anyone in an evacuation zone to flee immediately. "This is a catastrophic storm that our state has never seen."
Scott said all Florida residents should be prepared to leave if necessary.
#BREAKING All Florida residents 'should be prepared to evacuate': governor #HurricaineIrma
— AFP news agency (@AFP) September 8, 2017
To prepare for Irma, Scott ordered all 7,000 members of Florida's National Guard to report for duty on Friday morning. President Donald Trump declared states of emergency in Florida, Puerto Rico, and the US Virgin Islands on Tuesday evening to free up federal resources for a major response to the storm.
Power outages are already beginning to spread in Florida — nearly 30,000 customers are without power, and some areas will likely lack electricity for weeks.
The growth of a monster storm
Irma formed off the coast of western Africa last week and almost immediately started crossing the Caribbean Sea. Phil Klotzbach, a meteorologist at Colorado State University specializing in Atlantic hurricanes, told Business Insider that a combination of conditions — including a warm tropical Atlantic, a weak wind shear, and a change from drier to wetter weather — made it easy for Irma to pick up strength.
Irma officially became a named storm on August 30 and was classified as a hurricane the next day. Since then, it has gained and kept strength from the moisture of unusually warm waters in the Atlantic Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. Its sustained wind speeds of 185 mph for 37 hours set a record for the longest a cyclone has maintained that intensity.
James Belanger, a senior meteorological scientist with The Weather Company — the group behind the Weather Channel and Weather Underground — told Business Insider that it was "possible the storm could strengthen further" as it passes over warm waters near the Bahamas.
"One of the things we need to keep in mind is that some of the guidance is that the storm is going to maintain [strength]," he said.
A busy hurricane season
Irma, the season's fourth hurricane, has already put the Atlantic far ahead of the average accumulated cyclone energy — a measure of the energy of tropical cyclone systems — for this time of year. Klotzbach said that half of a season's cyclone energy usually occurs in September. But as of Wednesday, there had already been enough to meet the definition of an average season.
Both Colorado State University and The Weather Company predicted an unusually active hurricane season this year. Irma is the fourth hurricane of 2017, though the average date of the fourth hurricane in a year is September 21. This week, three hurricanes — Irma, Jose, and Katia — were swirling in the Atlantic, though the peak of the season is not until September 10.
(CIRA/RAMMB; GOES-16/NOAA)
Jose, a Category 4 hurricane east of Irma, threatens some of the same Caribbean islands that Irma has already devastated. Katia made landfall in Mexico late Friday night, and has since been downgraded to a tropical depression.
A hurricane's category is determined by its wind force — here's what the scale means:
(Ana Pelisson/Business Insider)
This is a developing story. Find all of Business Insider's latest Hurricane Irma coverage here.
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