NOAA
Hurricane Irma is already a historic storm despite only making landfall at 2 a.m. EST on Wednesday, with the 30-mile-wide eye passing over Barbuda. Hurricane Irma, which is one of the most powerful Atlantic storms ever recorded, is wreaking havoc on Caribbean islands and appears to be headed on a destructive path to make landfall in Florida. Irma is a catastrophic Category 5 hurricane with 185 mph winds that will likely sustain its ferocity or become stronger thanks to the warm waters of the Caribbean or the Gulf of Mexico. To understand the potential for complete and utter destruction, let’s take a look at 16 incredible and alarming facts about Hurricane Irma and all of the records this possibly cataclysmic storm has already set.
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The intensity, speed, and speedy evolution of Hurricane Irma forced the U.S. National Hurricane Center to describe the storm as “potentially catastrophic” and weather scientists are cautiously in awe of and extremely fearful.
“I am at a complete and utter loss for words looking at Irma’s appearance on satellite imagery,” wrote Taylor Trogdon, a scientist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center.
“No way to sugarcoat it. Irma is the type of tropical cyclone that wipes everything, including all vegetation, clean from small islands,” tweeted Anthony Sagliani, the Meteorological Operations Manager at weather data firm Earth Networks.
For more information on Hurricane Irma click HERE.