Hurricane Lee strengthens to Category 5, track still uncertain

Hurricane Lee – which was rated as a Category 1 storm just yesterday – has rapidly intensified into a Category 5 whirlwind, and reports suggests it could strengthen more on Friday (Sept. 8).

The future track of the storm remains uncertain, reports The Weather Network, but it is expected to be a dangerous hurricane over the southwestern Atlantic early next week.

“Life-threatening” surf and rip currents will spread across the northern Caribbean on Friday and begin affecting the United States on Sunday, the National Hurricane Centre reported in a 5 a.m. advisory.

The centre says the storm is now packing maximum sustained winds of 165 mph as it spins more than 1,000 kilometres east of the Caribbean’s northern Leeward Islands.

“Additional strengthening is forecast today. Fluctuations in intensity are likely over the next few days, but Lee is expected to remain a major hurricane through early next week,” forecasters wrote in the update.

Storm conditions in Virgin Islands, Puerto Rico

CNN reports that there is “increasing confidence” that the centre of Lee will pass to the north of the Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico this weekend, and early next week.

Tropical storm conditions could also occur on some of these islands over the weekend, the report says.

Turks and Caicos, the Bahamas and Bermuda should also be on watch for heightened storm activity, the hurricane centre said.

“It is way too soon to know what level of impacts, if any, Lee might have along the U.S. East Coast, Atlantic Canada or Bermuda late next week,” the centre noted, “particularly since the hurricane is expected to slow down considerably over the southwestern Atlantic.”

Meanwhile, as Lee churns stirs up the Atlantic, another storm has been named after intensifying in ocean waters.

On Thursday, a tropical depression in the eastern Atlantic strengthened into Tropical Storm Margot, a few hundred miles west of the Cabo Verde Islands, the hurricane center said.

Elsewhere, in the eastern Pacific, Hurricane Jova remains a formidable hurricane, although it is far from any possible shorelines – some 650 miles west-southwest from the southern tip of the Baja California peninsula.

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