The ninth named storm of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season has quickly gained strength.
“Rapidly intensifying” Irma grew into a hurricane this morning with maximum sustained winds of 115 mph.
The storm is still about 3,000 miles from Florida and poses no immediate threat to land and its potential to affect our weather will not come into focus for several days.
At 5 p.m. today, Irma was about 720 miles west of the Cabo Verde Islands.
The storm is moving toward the west-northwest at 12 mph.
“Irma is forecast to become a major hurricane by tonight and is expected to be an extremely dangerous hurricane for the next several days, ” the National Hurricane Center wrote in its 11 a.m. advisory.
Although Irma is too far away to predict where it will be in several days, the storm is expected to remain on a west-northwest motion for the next day.
Toward the middle of next week it’s predicted to have maximum winds of 120 mph, according to forecasters, which would make Irma a Category 3 storm.
One other system is being watched: an area of low pressure that could form over the southwestern Gulf of Mexico by the weekend. Currently it has a low chance of developing into a tropical cyclone during the next five days.
A tropical cyclone can take the form of a tropical depression, tropical storm, or hurricane.
