Hurricane Irene has strengthened significantly in the last 3 to 4 hours. At last report, it was a category-1 storm with 80 mph maximum sustained winds. It is now a category-2 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph. It has also slowed-down some, and is now moving to the west-northwest at 10 mph. Its current location is 130 miles east of Puerto Plata, Dominican Republic. A hurricane warning is in-effect for portions of the D.R., the Turks and Caicos Islands, and the central and southeastern Bahamas. Irene will mainly stay over open water over the next 24-hours. Unfortunately, this means additional strengthening is likely.
Every model run over the last few days has been pushing this storm further east. (Been checking http://www.stormpulse.com/atlantic, pretty cool site for viewing the ensables). Watch out NYC! First earthquake, now this. Yikes!
ReplyDeleteHopefully the eastward movement continues - it's been such a long time since a hurricane has hit the east coast! Thanks for passing along that website...very cool! -CK
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