Hurricane Lee anticipated to regain power as storm spins means from East Coast: Live

After it was downgraded from a Category 3 storm, Hurricane Lee is predicted to regain power because it travels alongside heat Atlantic waters within the coming days.

Lee is “slowing down” because it strikes nicely north of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands and the northern Leeward Islands, although it nonetheless stays too early to find out its course and whether or not the northeastern US coast and Canada may see any impacts, in accordance with an advisory from the National Hurricane Center on 10 September.

But life-threatening surf and rip situations are anticipated alongside the East Coast, whereas harmful swells generated by the storm are spreading to the Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas, and Bermuda.

Newly shaped Tropical Storm Margot is anticipated to develop right into a hurricane subsequent week, elevating the chance that it may mingle or alter Hurricane Lee’s path, although it’s nonetheless far too quickly to mission whether or not the 2 main storms may get shut to 1 one other any time quickly within the Atlantic Ocean.

Such a phenomenon, when two storms rotate round one another and spin in the identical course, is known as the Fujiwhara impact. The National Weather Service describes it as “an intense dance around their common center.”

That may then push them each across the Atlantic and alter their paths.

The phenomenon occured with hurricanes Hilary and Irwin within the East Pacific in 2017.

Hurricane Lee is in uncommon firm. Only two recorded storms – Hurricane Wilma in 2005 and Hurricane Felix in 2007 – strengthened sooner than Lee over a 24-hour interval, as Lee developed from a Cat 1 to a Cat 5 final week earlier than degrading into its present Cat 3 standing.

Brian McNoldy with the University of Miami informed NBC News that the nice and cozy situations within the Atlantic have been ripe for the storm’s fast intensification.

The “vertical wind shear was very low and the water temperature under it was very warm,” he mentioned, including that Lee “took full advantage of both.”

Warm waters are a potent gas for hurricanes to achieve power, a phenomenon prone to speed up amid a rising local weather disaster and warming waters.

Last yr, Hurricane Ian quickly intensified over two separate durations earlier than putting Florida. Hurricane Idalia lately strengthened from a Cat 1 to a Cat 4 inside 24 hours.

“It’s a huge problem, and the past is not a good guide to what we should expect going forward,” Jeff Masters, a former hurricane scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, informed NBC.

The first Category 5 storm of the Atlantic hurricane season didn’t keep that means very lengthy, however Hurricane Lee’s fast intensification from a Category 1 right into a Category 5 inside 24 hours from Thursday into Friday is probably going a record-breaking occasion in trendy meteorological historical past.

The storm then degraded right into a Cat 4 then a Cat 3, although it’s prone to collect power because it strikes northeast.

Cat 5 storms already are uncommon, however inreasingly extra widespread, relative to the historical past books. According to University of Miami hurricane professional Brian McNoldy, roughly 4 per cent of named storms within the Atlantic basin have reached that threshold for the reason that early Twenties.

Lee’s intensification from an 80 mph Cat 1 to a Cat 5 with 160 mph winds has doubtless made it the fastest-intensifying Atlantic storm on report.

Not solely that, for the primary time on report, Cat 5 storms have shaped in each tropical ocean basin inside one yr.

The USS Federal Emergency Management Agency has roughly 4.5 million meals and practically 8.9 million liters of water in Puerto Rico as Hurricane Lee rears eastward as a robust Category 3 storm that would acquire power over the weekend.

The storm will not be but predicted to make landfall, if it does in any respect, however emergency responders and nationwide climate companies are maintaining a detailed watch.

Roughly 250,000 meals and greater than 600,000 liters of water are ready to assist the US Virgin Islands, FEMA additionally introduced on Friday.

It still remains far too early to tell what Lee will look like for the East Coast as it creeps along a northeastern track, but forecasters predict high seas and rip currents up and down the Eastern Seaboard.

“What we are going to see from Lee – and we’re very assured – is it’s going to be a significant wave producer,” National Hurricane Center director Mike Brennan mentioned in a Friday briefing.

On Saturday, massive swells battered the northeast Caribbean as Lee churned by way of open waters a whole bunch of miles off the northern Leeward Islands, the Associated Press reported.

The highest waves recorded by the middle have been at about 45 and 50 ft, and the “highest waves could even be double that,” Mr Brennan mentioned.

“So we could be looking at 80-, 90-foot waves associated with Lee,” he added.

Exactly when or how Lee will journey northeast remains to be too early to inform. What occurs subsequent is as much as a mix of atmospheric elements, together with an space of excessive stress within the Atlantic Ocean and a jet stream to its west.

That space of excessive stress is prone to play a significant function in Lee’s monitor, and is anticipated to maintain Lee on its present west-northwestward path over the weekend. That situation would hold the storm rotating out to sea, or ship it nearer to Bermuda.

The storm remains to be roughly one week from posing a possible menace to the East Coast of the US, if it poses any in any respect.

Hurricane Lee, nonetheless a Category 3 storm, is anticipated to cross “pass well to the north of the northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico into early next week,” in accordance with a day advisory from the National Hurricane Center.

Maximum sustained winds are close to 115 mph with larger gusts, and gradual “restrengthening” is feasible throughout the subsequent couple of days, the middle predicts.

Swells generated by Lee are affecting parts of the Lesser Antilles and can unfold westward to the British and US Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Turks and Caicos Islands, the Bahamas, and Bermuda by way of the weekend. Those swells are “likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” in accordance with the report.

“Dangerous surf and rip currents” are additionally anticipated alongside the US East Coast on Sunday and Monday after which worsen by way of the week.

Hurricane Lee was considerably disrupted by wind shear throughout the 24 hours after it accelerated right into a Category 5 hurricane, because it then degraded right into a Category 4 then Category 3 into Saturday morning.

Models are suggesting that the shear will subside by Sunday morning, which may permit Lee to achieve extra power because it continues to trace east, in accordance with Levi Cowan with Joint Typhoon Warning Center.

“Regardless of Lee’s exact intensity, it will be a major hurricane tracking north of the Caribbean and then turning northward over the western Atlantic over the next week,” he mentioned.

“It remains too soon to rule out impacts from Lee” as fashions predict it may monitor forwards Bermuda, Canada and the northeastern US, he added.

Hurricane Lee’s acceleration from an 80 mph Cat 1 to a Cat 5 with 160 mph winds inside 24 hours has surpassed the requirements meteorologists usually affiliate with “rapid intensification,” or when winds improve by 35 mph inside that very same time interval.

It not solely makes Lee the fastest-intensifying Atlantic storm on report, it has set a brand new threshold that scientists see as a possible harbinger for what’s to come back because the local weather disaster accelerates.

“This one increased by 80 mph,” Marshall Shepherd, director of the University of Georgia’s Atmospheric Sciences Program and a previous president of the American Meteorological Society informed the Associated Press. “I can’t emphasize this enough – we used to have this metric of 35 mph, and here’s a storm that did twice that amount and we’re seeing that happen more frequently.”