Hurricane Ian intensified to just shy of catastrophic Category 5 strength Wednesday as its heavy winds began pummelling the US state of Florida, with forecasters warning of life-threatening storm surges after leaving millions without power in Cuba.
September 28, 2022
Hurricane Ian intensified to just shy of catastrophic Category 5 strength Wednesday as its heavy winds began pummelling the US state of Florida, with forecasters warning of life-threatening storm surges after leaving millions without power in Cuba.
Mandatory evacuation orders had been issued in a dozen coastal Florida counties, with voluntary evacuation recommended in several others, according to the state’s emergency officials as they girded for a potentially historic storm.
In a pre-dawn advisory the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said „Ian has strengthened into an extremely dangerous Category 4 hurricane,“ warning later of „catastrophic storm surge, winds, and flooding.“
At 7:00 am (1100 GMT) it said „data from a Hurricane Hunter aircraft indicate that maximum sustained winds have increased to near 155 miles (250 kilometers) per hour“—just shy of Category 5, the strongest category on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
„This is going to be a nasty, nasty day, two days,“ Governor Ron DeSantis said early Wednesday as he warned residents of a „rough stretch“ ahead for Florida.
„It could make landfall as a Category 5, but clearly this is a very powerful major hurricane that’s going to have major impacts, both on… southwest Florida but as it continues to work through the state.“
The NHC for its part said Ian was „rapidly intensifying,“ while conditions along the Florida coast were „rapidly deteriorating.“
Tropical storm-strength winds were already battering the Florida Keys, as the storm was expected to make landfall later Wednesday near Fort Myers and Port Charlotte, along the state’s west coast, before moving across central Florida and emerging in the Atlantic Ocean by late Thursday.
