During the afternoon hours on Friday, Cuban radars caught Irma’s impressive eye traveling and brushing the island. At this point, advisories had the storm as a category 5, but weakened to a category 4 during the overnight hours on Saturday.
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As Irma begins to affect Florida, its feeder bands have already brought tropical-storm-force wind gusts and torrential downpours Saturday morning. Tropical-storm-force winds will become more sustained in the early afternoon, and increase to hurricane-force early Sunday.
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Just to put it into perspective, these tropical-storm-force winds extend 195 miles and hurricane-force winds extend 70 miles from the center of Irma. South Florida is a little over 100 miles wide.
Other impacts include: storm surge and rainfall. Storm surge warnings have been issued for areas in Broward, Miami-Dade, and the Keys. Coastal flooding due to storm surge could reach heights greater than 3 – 6 feet above ground.
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As for rainfall, flooding is one of south Florida’s primary concerns. The forecast has 10 – 15″ of rain with isolated amounts of up to 20″ through the next 3 days. While Irma’s track takes it toward the North, south Florida will continue to get rain from the storm into next week.
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Be safe, south Florida
Meteorologist Vivian Gonzalez
WSVN Morning Weekday Meteorologist