Photo: NHC/NOAA / Courtesy
Tropical Storm Lee strengthened into a hurricane Wednesday night with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and is expected to rapidly strengthen into an “extremely dangerous” hurricane with potential maximum winds of 150 mph, which would place it at the high end of category 4, reported the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in its latest bulletin.
Lee, which upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane on Wednesday, will likely become a major hurricane on Friday yeahn a Category 4 hurricane with winds up to 150 mph Saturday.
“No direct hits are expected in South Florida at this time,” the Miami National Weather Service said Tuesday night on X, the social media platform formerly known as Twitter.
But the meteorologists they are already using serious language to warn about the intensity of the storm and its prospects.
“It is becoming a question of when rather than if there will be a rapid escalation with Lee,” the notice states. Winds are forecast to reach 150 mph, which makes it a powerful Category 4 ‘major hurricane’ with the possibility of “explosive intensification”.
The reason for the higher wind speed are the above-average water temperatures in the Atlantic area where the storm is.
Lee is currently 1,200 miles east of the Leeward Islands.
Hurricane Lee is currently expected to move north of the Caribbean islands over the weekend, avoiding any direct impact other than strong surf and rip currents.
“The system should be moving over record warm water… east of the Lesser Antilles.” Forecasters say those kinds of water temperatures are what you normally see in the Gulf of Mexico, not the much colder ocean.
This forecast, so far out in the Atlantic, with such a rapid strengthening prediction is unusual.. Still, it’s too early to say for sure exactly where the hurricane will head.
Forecasts may change over the next week but currently show Lee moving parallel to the US East Coast, if it stays on that course the East Coast would see no direct hits but it would be affected by large waves and rip currents in the coming week.
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