Category 4 Hurricane Ike has become a very dangerous tropical system and is located about 90 miles east of Grand Turk Island.
As of 5:00 p.m. Saturday, Ike was near 21.4 north and 69.7 west. The storm's maximum-sustained winds have increased to 135 mph with higher gusts.
Hurricane Ike is moving west-southwest at 15 mph. Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 45 miles and tropical storm-force winds reportedly extend outward up to 140 miles.
Ike is forecast to maintain Category 4 status as it moves across the Southeastern Bahamas and near eastern Cuba tomorrow. Some further strengthening is possible due to less wind shear and warmer water. This could allow Ike to become a very strong Category 4 or possibly even a Category 5 hurricane before affecting Cuba later Sunday or Sunday night.
Hurricane warnings are posted for the southeastern Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos while a hurricane watch is posted for eastern Cuba and the central Bahamas. A tropical storm warning is in place for the the northern coast of the Dominican Republic.
Some of the latest computer models point to a potential path that would take Ike across Cuba, on a east to west track.
While this is not good for Cuba, it would be very good for south Florida and the Florida Keys.
Interests especially along the north-central and northeast Gulf coast would be wise to pay close attention to Ike's projected path.
Hurricane Ike charged toward Cuba and the Gulf of Mexico as a ferocious Category 4 storm on Saturday, while Tropical Storm Hanna drenched the U.S. Atlantic coast after barrelling ashore in the Carolinas.
Ike's top sustained winds reached 135 miles per hour (215 kph), making it an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 on the five-step Saffir Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
Ike alternately weakened and strengthened but was likely to remain a "major" hurricane of at least Category 3 as it slammed into Cuba, the forecasters said.
The densely populated Miami-Fort Lauderdale area in south Florida seemed an increasingly less likely target but visitors were ordered to flee the vulnerable Florida Keys island chain on Saturday.
Computer models indicated Ike would sweep into Cuba late on Sunday, severely threatening sugar cane fields, the tourist hotels of Varadero and the crumbling colonial buildings of Havana.
The storm was forecast to curve into the Gulf of Mexico in the wake of this week's Hurricane Gustav, plowing toward an area that produces a quarter of domestic U.S. oil, and slamming ashore near New Orleans, which was swamped and traumatized by Hurricane Katrina three years ago.
Katrina was a Category 3 when it struck near New Orleans on August 29, 2005, swamping the city and killing 1,500 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast.
The deeper Ike goes into Cuba, the weaker it will be once it re-emerges over the Gulf of Mexico by midweek, the hurricane center said. It added, however, "Some restrengthening is forecast once Ike departs Cuba."
Alerts went up across eastern Cuba as residents shivered at the prospect of another major storm a week after Hurricane Gustav devastated parts of western Cuba. Tourists were evacuated from the Guardalavaca resort on Holguin province's northern coast, as were thousands of students picking coffee in the mountains.
In Havana, residents lined up at gas stations and searched stores for candles, crackers and canned goods after a forecaster warned on state television that "almost the entire country is in the danger zone."
"It looks like this year we will have no respite," Eduardo Gonzalez said from eastern Santiago de Cuba, "and if it continues like this we will have to live out the hurricane season in the shelters."
Hanna did not reach hurricane strength before sloshing ashore over North and South Carolina overnight after killing 500 people in Haiti with torrential rain and floods.
"We have been incredibly fortunate," North Carolina emergency management spokeswoman Jill Lucas said. "We have had no significant damage. We have had some trees down and local flooding but nothing significant."
Hanna sped northeast along the U.S. East Coast, bringing heavy rains to the mid-Atlantic states and southern New England. More than 5 inches (13 cm) of rain fell in Raleigh, North Carolina.
In the New York metropolitan area, gusts and downpours halted play at the U.S. Open tennis tournament, delaying the women's finals and one men's semifinal until Sunday. Airports stayed open but flights were delayed by up to three hours.
Hanna's center was near Atlantic City, New Jersey, late on Saturday and its sustained winds had dropped to 55 mph (93 kph), the hurricane center said. Hanna was forecast to lose its tropical characteristics as it moved northeast over the Canadian Maritime provinces on Sunday.
INTO THE GULF
Ike was far more threatening than Hanna as it charted a course that would take it through Turks and Caicos islands and the southeastern Bahamas toward eastern Cuba. It was around 60 miles (105 km) east of Grand Turk Island and was forecast to batter the islands in its path with storm surge flooding up to 18 feet (5.5 metres) above normal tides.
Once in the Gulf of Mexico it might find deep warm water to allow it to grow bigger and stronger, although Hurricane Gustav may have stirred up colder water from the depths before crashing into Louisiana on Monday.
In southeast Florida, up to 1.3 million people could be forced to evacuate if the storm turns north. State and local officials urged Miami residents not to be complacent.
In the low-lying Florida Keys, visitors were ordered out on Saturday and residents were told to evacuate on Sunday along the lone road linking the island chain to the mainland.
Former Key West Mayor Jimmy Weekley, owner of Fausto's Market, said the store had a run on water on Friday but business returned to normal on Saturday.
"I think people are seeing the new hurricane track and are not as concerned as they were yesterday," he said.
John Vagnoni, owner of the Green Parrot Bar, said there would be no hurricane party there.
"We don't do a hurricane party, per se, at the Parrot," Vagnoni said. "Let's take care of our own houses, be safe and then, afterward, there will be plenty of time to have a party. I'd much rather have a survivors' party."
No comments:
Post a Comment