Class 4 Hurricane Dorian Threatens Florida

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Hurricane Dorian has intensified during Friday to become a class 4 storm with maximum sustained windspeeds of up to 140 mph.

https://edition.cnn.com/us/live-news/hurricane-dorian-august-2019/index.html

Hurricane Dorian is currently located 545 miles east of West Palm Beach, and is moving west-northwest at 10 mph. It is expected to impact the coast of Florida in the early hours of the Labour Day holiday on Monday.

A large swathe of coastal areas from the barrier islands at West Palm Beach up to Orlando-Melbourne international airport may be affected when it comes ashore.

The forecast calls for Dorian to reach the Florida coast near Melbourne on Tuesday, but does not bring the center of the storm over mainland Florida, instead it moves along the coast northward toward Jacksonville. 

The forecast calls for additional strengthening of up to 150 mph tomorrow. Category 5 winds are from 157 mph and higher. 

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Hurricane Dorian is now a category 5 storm with sustained maximum windspeeds of 160 mph according to the National Hurricane Center. This would put the storm in the highest category on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.

https://edition.cnn.com/us/live-news/hurricane-dorian-september-2019/index.html

NHC said the most severe weather of the hurricane, known as the eyewall, is about to hit Abaco islands in the Bahamas.

The forecast models are all in agreement that Dorian is going to make a turn to the north Tuesday or Wednesday. But exactly when is the question. This could mean the difference between a landfalling hurricane and no landfall at all.

The storm could skitter up the southeastern US coast, putting many areas at risk of devastating tropical storm and tidal surge conditions.

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Hurricane Dorian made landfall in Elbow Cay in the Abaco Islands on Sunday afternoon, then made a second landfall near Marsh Harbor on Great Abaco at 2 p.m.

https://eu.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2019/09/01/hurricane-dorian-storm-strengthens-category-5-status/2186155001/

The National Hurricane Center said the storm was driving sustained winds of 185 mph, with gusts exceeding 220 mph. That tied the Labor Day hurricane of 1935, which tore through the Florida Keys, killing more than 400 people in the days before hurricanes were given names.

Dorian's slow crawl, estimated at about 5 mph as of early Sunday evening, placed it within 155 miles of West Palm Beach, Florida. But forecasters remained unsure of whether, or where, it might make landfall in the U.S. after it makes an expected turn to the north. That left millions of people from South Florida to North Carolina on alert and preparing for the worst.

Four Florida counties began evacuations of barrier islands and low-lying areas on Sunday. And South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster ordered evacuations of more than 800,000 people starting Monday.