Residents are on alert as a rapidly changing but slow-moving Hurricane Irma heads toward the Leeward Islands with a 70 percent chance of becoming a Category 4 storm by Tuesday.
Keithley Meade, director at the meteorological office, said that if residents are
not yet making hurricane preparations, they should begin now. Irma is ranked as a Category 3 hurricane at press time.
Based upon current projections, the storm may pass north of Antigua and Barbuda. But Dale Destin, acting deputy director at the meteorological office, said there are still uncertainties surrounding the storm’s track.
“At this time residents should be concerned but not worried as the system is still far away. A number of things could happen over the next few days, including weakening or the system turning away from the area,” Destin said. “But we are asking residents to monitor the storm and be prepared.”
The National Hurricane Center advised that Irma is expected to be “an extremely dangerous hurricane for the next several days.”
The center of Hurricane Irma is approximately 1780 miles east of the Leeward Islands, with maximum sustained winds increasing to 115 miles per hour. It is moving west north west at 12 miles per hour.
In the last 24 hours, Irma transformed from a tropical storm into a Category 2 hurricane.