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Cat 4 Irma path now squarely through Florida

UPDATE #4: Now Cat 2, crossed the coast, winds 105 mph (165 km/h) and 942 mb.  Slowing down,  but hurricane force winds are still covering an area 80 miles from the eye.  Hurricane Jose is Cat 3, 120 mph,  956 hPa. Moving at 14 mph.

UPDATE #3: Late Sunday night Australia time (Sunday morning US 11AM) Official advisory updates are here. #46 says 130mph, with lowest pressure 933 hPA . Watch news come in on twitter #IRMA. Blackouts across Miami —  over 1 million without power. Storm surges. Streets turning into rivers. Waterspouts off the east coast of Florida.

For comparison:

A few hurricanes that have hit Florida
Hurricane Year hPa Speed mph Fatalities
Labor Day 1935 892 160 160
Camille 1969 900 175 259
Andrew 1992 922 145 65
Katrina 2005 902 175 1,245–1,836

Katrina is listed as 920 and 902 hPa on different wiki pages. (PS: Judging by the map on this post, Camille and Andrew did not hit Florida. Hmm. Wikipedia?)

UPDATE#2: Sunday morning Australia time. Irma now aCat 3, up to a Cat 4 again, savaging Cuba and weakening as it loses moisture being half over land. It is already affecting Florida, with gusts of 50-60 miles per hour, and set to go north right along the western edge of the peninsula (which has caught people off guard, as the eastern edge have boarded up windows in anticipation, but many on the western side did not). In the 12 full hours over the ocean north of Cuba it may well recover a lot of wind speed quickly. Will hit the Keys in 12 hours. Watch the windy.com radar here, or the Ventuski radar and the TropicalTidbits updates here. Weatherbell forecaster Joe Bastardi has a public update with the eye track running along the west edge of Florida. He is expecting it to speed up and hit near Port Charlotte as close to a Cat 5 with 150 mile per hour winds. He predicts it to deepen from 935hPa to 896hPa. Hurricane Jose is following in the wake of Irma and could be a big problem. Watch his public video (top right at his site). He points  out the high pressures in the North Atlantic are also helping to drive a bad hurricane season.

UPDATE #1: At least 4 dead in British Virgin Islands. BBC footage shows devastation.This video is by Levi Cohen (TropicalTidbits).  h/t to RAH, Tomomason, RobertW and others (great comments, thank you).

Best wishes to the people of Florida, Cuba, the Caribbean.

The tracker here is automatically updating.

Hurrican Irma Forecast

Hurrican Irma Forecast

Ryan Maue :No longer any spread or uncertainty about landfall of Hurricane #Irma … this is happening for sure, unfortunately.

Thoughts also to those in Mexico with the Magnitude 8.1 Earthquake hitting the southern coast, and at least 61 dead.

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