DEVELOPING: Hurricane Irma made landfall on Marco Island Sunday afternoon — its second landfall in Florida as the state continues to brace for the now-Category 3 storm’s strong, 115-mph winds and flooding.
In its 2 p.m. ET advisory, the National Hurricane Center said the storm was located about 35 miles south-southeast of Naples, with sustained winds of 120 miles per hour, and headed north at 12 mph.
The nearly 400-mile-wide storm made landfall at Cudjoe Key in the lower Florida Keys at 9:10 am ET, the NHC said. A 92 mph wind gust was recently reported at the Federal Aviation Administration station at Miami International Airport.
“Pray, pray for everybody in Florida,” Gov. Rick Scott said on “Fox News Sunday.”
The latest forecasts project Irma will hug Florida’s western coast off Fort Myers through the day Sunday, with the eye wall reaching the Tampa Bay area by the end of the day. At least 28 people have died as Hurricane Irma ravaged the Caribbean this week, destroying buildings and uprooting trees on its path toward Florida.
One hour of 30-second #GOES16 vis imagery as Hurricane #Irma made landfall in the Florida Keys as a cat 4 with sustained winds of 130 MPH. pic.twitter.com/SWIMtbIqAP
— NASA SPoRT (@NASA_SPoRT) September 10, 2017
“We know we are ground zero for this storm,” Tampa Mayor Bob Buckhorn said at a news conference announcing a curfew that will take effect at 6 p.m. Sunday. “We have avoided it for 90 years, but our time has come to be ready.”
“Depending on the exact track of Irma, locations in the hurricane warning areas could see devastating to catastrophic impacts, including structural damage and widespread power and communication outages from high winds.”
Irma’s wind field is large, with hurricane-force winds extending outward up to 80 miles from the center, and tropical-storm-force winds extend outward up to 220 miles, according to Fox News Senior Meteorologist Janice Dean. Those hurricane-force winds will expand eastward across the entire peninsula.
“Depending on the exact track of Irma, locations in the hurricane warning areas could see devastating to catastrophic impacts, including structural damage and widespread power and communication outages from high winds,” Dean said. “The National Weather Service said that areas in the hurricane warning could be uninhabitable for weeks or months.”
“It is important to remember not to just focus on the forecast cone, as it does not take into account the large size of Irma, with dangerous impacts expected outside of the path of the center,” Dean added.
The center of Hurricane #Irma has exited the Keys and is now taking aim on the Florida peninsula. #GOES16 pic.twitter.com/UNZ0gbcx4Z
— NASA SPoRT (@NASA_SPoRT) September 10, 2017
Irma was at one time the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the open Atlantic, with a peak wind speed of 185 mph last week. This marks the first year on record the continental U.S. has had two Category 4 hurricane landfalls in the same year.
The first hurricane-force winds arrived in the Florida Keys shortly before 11 p.m. ET Saturday, bending palm trees and spitting rain as the storm swirled north. There will be a tornado threat across Florida for the next 36 hours, according to Fox News Chief Meteorologist Rick Reichmuth.
In Palm Bay, Florida, located about 74 miles southeast of Orlando, police said six mobile homes were destroyed by a tornado, but no injuries were reported.
More: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2017/09/10/irma-makes-landfall-again-in-florida-as-category-3-storm-on-marco-island.html
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NEW: Hurricane Irma Downgraded To Category 2; Video Shows Streets Flooding In Lehigh Acres, Florida pic.twitter.com/H70ocVhmDT
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) September 10, 2017
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Why Hurricanes Irma & Harvey are So Powerful it’s Cosmic Rays not CO2
With Hurricane Irma bearing down on the west coast of Florida with 140 mph winds, and last week Hurricane Harvey drowning Texas, there is much talk of CO2 causing the weather intensity changes. Why is it that longer term cycles, cosmic rays and the grand solar minimum are not discussed as causes in intensification for the changes globally we are seeing. I present my findings that cosmic rays are causing the extreme weather we are seeing and a timeline for more intensification based on feedback loops of more cloud cover due to a weakened magnetosphere allowing cosmic rays to form more clouds between 15,000-18,500 ft in the Earth’s atmosphere.
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A useful retort for those claiming #Irma & #Harvey hurricanes are a sure sign of ‘climate change’
History can be a pesky thing, facts are stubborn things. There’s lot’s of caterwauling in the left about hurricane Irma on the heels of Harvey, being a sure sign of ‘climate change’ or global warming, or ‘climate disruption’ or something. A couple of days ago, king of the alarmists, Dr. Michael Mann, and his ex NCDC/NCEI toadie Dr. Thomas Peterson (architect of the Karlization of the global temperature record), penned a ridiculous op-ed in the Washinton Post:
Only in the mind of Mann can such drivel be produced. Mann is not a hurricane expert, he’s also apparently not a scholar of history.
Dr. Philip Klotzbach is both:
Harvey & #Irma made US landfall as major hurricanes ~15 days apart. Record between US major hurricane landfalls is 23 hours set in 1933. pic.twitter.com/OzM2mfbLMd
— Philip Klotzbach (@philklotzbach) September 10, 2017
So the question for Mann et al. is: what drove those major hurricanes to be so close together in 1933? Surely if that happened today, it would be used to “kill any doubt” Right?
And what about the fact that Irma and Harvey have come in 7th and 18th compared to storms of that era, hmmm?
Inquiring minds want to know.
