Lee strengthened right into a Category 1 hurricane Wednesday and is predicted to quickly intensify beginning later Thursday into a particularly harmful main hurricane” by early Friday, the National Hurricane Center says.
Large ocean swells are anticipated to achieve the Lesser Antilles by Friday and the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, the Bahamas, Bermuda and Hispaniola by the weekend, the hurricane heart stated.
“These swells are prone to trigger life-threatening surf and rip present situations,” the company reported.
Forecasters say it is too quickly to challenge the extent of its potential affect may appear to be, however for now the Leeward Islands, the place the Caribbean and Atlantic meet, ought to keep alert.
The Leewards embody the Virgin Islands, Anguilla, Saint Martin and Saint Kitts.
NOAA/National Weather Service
Just earlier than 5 a.m. EDT on Thursday, Lee was touring west-northwest at 13 mph over the southern Atlantic Ocean, with most sustained winds of 80 mph. Its heart was about 965 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands.
Earlier Wednesday. Lee’s heart was packing most sustained winds of 65 mph — a pickup of 15 mph in mere hours.
This comes simply days after Hurricane Idalia left a path of destruction throughout the Southeast.
That storm made landfall Wednesday in Florida, the place it razed properties and downed energy poles. It then headed northeast, slamming Georgia, flooding a lot of South Carolina’s beachfronts and sending seawater into the streets of downtown Charleston. In North Carolina, it poured greater than 9 inches of rain on Whiteville, flooding downtown buildings.
Idalia claimed not less than two lives, one in Florida and the opposite in Georgia.
Idalia’s affect from injury and misplaced financial exercise is anticipated to be within the $12 to $20 billion vary, in response to Moody’s Analytics.
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