Hurricane Irma Track Forecast – Here’s What To Expect In Florida, Georgia And Carolinas
Story Highlights;
Hurricane Irma will bring severe hurricane conditions to Florida by Sunday.
Florida will see destructive winds, storm surge, heavy rain and isolated tornadoes.
Irma will then impact parts of Georgia and the Carolinas by later Sunday into Monday.
Major coastal flooding is possible on the Southeast coast. Inland and coastal areas could see power outages and tree damage.
Hurricane Irma poses a threat of devastating impacts to parts of Florida, and will also bring significant impacts to parts of Georgia and the Carolinas later this weekend into early next week.
Key uncertainties still remain in the forecast for Irma’s eventual impacts along its future path, but other parts of the forecast are becoming clearer.
Irma is a large hurricane, so, despite the uncertainty in its track, impacts will be felt in a large area along its path.
A threat of rainfall flooding and strong winds capable of triggering power outages, downing trees and perhaps some structural damage is likely to some degree well inland from wherever Irma tracks in relation to Florida and the Southeast this weekend into early next week.
A forecast model developed by Seth Guikema (University of Michigan), Steven Quiring (Ohio State University) and Brent McRoberts (Texas A&M) predicted 2 to 3 million customers could be without power from Florida to east Tennessee from Irma’s widespread winds. Outages could last days to weeks in parts of Florida.
Hurricane Irma Track Forecast
Here is what we know about impacts for Florida, Georgia, South Carolina and North Carolina right now.
Florida
What We Know: Irma will remain an intense hurricane, at least Category 4, as it makes landfall in South Florida on Sunday, with potentially devastating impacts. The hurricane will then go on to affect much of the peninsula, with severe impacts extending into parts of central and northern Florida.
Life-threatening storm-surge inundation will occur along coastal areas north and east of Irma’s path. Hurricane-force winds (74+ mph) that are capable of causing structural damage and widespread power outages will also occur. Flooding rainfall and isolated tornadoes are threats as well.
Irma has a large wind field so tropical-storm, even hurricane-force winds might reach both the west and east coast of Florida.
That National Hurricane Center (NHC) says that water inundation could reach the following levels above ground level in Florida if peak surge coincides with high tide.
- Southwest Florida from Captiva to Cape Sable: 8 to 12 feet
- Cape Sable to Boca Raton including the Florida Key: 5 to 10 feet
- Venice to Captiva: 5 to 8 feet
- Anclote River to Venice including Tampa Bay: 3 to 5 feet
- Boca Raton to Flagler/Volusia County line: 3 to 6 feet
Follow instructions from local government and emergency managers. This is not a hurricane you want to risk riding out. If a mandatory evacuation is issued, you are strongly urged to leave.
