Hurricane Dorian Updates: A ‘Catastrophic’ Category 5 Storm With Ferocious Winds

he Latest Headline on Hurricane Dorian—Published Sept. 01, 2019 11:15 P.M.

Updated Sept. 07, 2019

Latest updates on Saturday, Sept. 07, 2019:

• Hurricane Dorian made landfall on North Carolina’s Outer Banks as a Category 1 storm, hitting the coast with heavy rain and strong winds. In the Bahamas, the death toll from the hurricane keeps rising.
• The center of the Category 1 storm passed over Cape Hatteras in the Outer Banks at 8:35 a.m. Friday, according to the National Weather Service.
• Winds produced by the remnants of Hurricane Dorian tore roofs off buildings, downed trees, collapsed a construction crane and left hundreds of thousands of people without electricity in three provinces in Canada on Saturday.
• As the winds began inflicting damage in Canada, the storm was upgraded to a Category 2 by hurricane tracking services in both Canada and the United States. But by Saturday afternoon they declared that Dorian was no longer a hurricane but “a very intense post-tropical system.” That aside, Environment Canada, the country’s weather agency, reported that its offshore weather buoys were recording winds of more than 90 miles an hour and waves as high as 65 feet.
• Weather forecasters anticipated that Dorian would cross Nova Scotia and New Brunswick on Saturday night before striking the Western portion of Newfoundland on Sunday.

Latest updates on Friday, Sept. 06, 2019:

• As the storm drew close to the North Carolina coast, forecasters warned of storm surge of up to eight feet in places, and more than 200,000 customers were without power.
• After days of drenching the U.S. Southeast from its perch offshore, Hurricane Dorian finally came ashore Friday morning. The National Hurricane Center says the eye made landfall over Cape Hatteras, N.C., at 8:35 a.m. ET, with maximum sustained winds near 90 mph — making Dorian a Category 1 storm when it hit.
• Hurricane Dorian was pounding much of the Carolina coast with heavy rain and strong winds on Thursday, spawning small tornadoes and causing widespread power losses and flooding.
• By Thursday evening, the Category 2 storm was centered about 30 miles from Cape Fear, N.C., and its eyewall, where the winds are strongest, was very near the cape, according to the National Hurricane Center. The storm was slowly weakening as it moved northeastward up the East Coast at about 10 miles an hour, but it remained a destructive Category 2 hurricane. The center’s models indicated that the eye of the storm, about 45 miles in diameter, could touch land on the Outer Banks of North Carolina Thursday night or Friday.
• Dorian won’t linger the way it did to devastating effect in the Bahamas, though. It has steadily sped up its forward motion and is now moving northeast at 25 mph, the NHC says in its 11 p.m. ET update.

Source: The New York Times

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Hurricane Dorian Tropical Cyclone Updates from the National Hurricane Center, Miami, FL (6:00 P.M. EST): A ‘Catastrophic’ Category 5 Storm With Ferocious Winds—Dorian made landfall in the Bahamas as a Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds of 185 m.p.h., wind gusts over 220 m.p.h., and Storm Surge 18 to 23 feet above normal tide levels with higher destructive waves, according to the National Hurricane Center.

Updates from the National Hurricane Center, Miami, FL (6:00 P.M. EST):

• Location…26.6n 77.5w
• About 75 Mi…120 Km E Of Freeport Grand Bahama Island
• About 155 Mi…250 Km E Of West Palm Beach Florida
• Maximum Sustained Winds…185 Mph…295 Km/H
• Present Movement…W Or 270 Degrees At 5 Mph…7 Km/H
• Minimum Central Pressure…910 Mb…26.88 Inches

Take a look at Hurricane Dorian from space, as captured by high-definition cameras outside the International Space Station at 12:16 p.m. EDT as the storm churned over the Atlantic Ocean. Moving with sustained winds of 180 miles an hour as a Category 5 hurricane, the storm is carrying the strongest winds in recorded history for the northwestern Bahamas.

Full Coverage from the Associated Press

11:15 P.M.

• The National Hurricane Center has extended hurricane and storm surge watches northward in Florida to the Georgia state line as Hurricane Dorian continues to pound the northern Bahamas.
• As of 11 p.m. Sunday, the hurricane had weakened slightly, with top sustained winds down to 180 mph (285 kph). The storm remains a Category 5 and Dorian is “expected to remain a powerful hurricane” over the next few days, with possible fluctuations in intensity.
• Dorian is centered around 55 miles (90 kilometers) east of Freeport on Grand Bahama Island and 135 miles (220 kilometers) east of West Palm Beach, Florida. It’s moving westward at 6 mph (9 kph).
• The hurricane center warns of life-threatening storm surges and dangerous winds along portions of Florida’s east coast later in the week. Specialists say strong winds and dangerous storm surge are increasingly likely along the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina.

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9:50 P.M.

• Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp has ordered a mandatory evacuation of the state’s Atlantic coast starting at midday Monday.
• Kemp tweeted late Sunday that his executive order covers all those located east of the Interstate 95 corridor on Georgia’s Atlantic seaboard. It begins at noon EDT Monday as powerful Hurricane Dorian creeps ever closer to the U.S. Southeast.
• Dorian marks the third time since 2016 that hurricane evacuations have been ordered for all of coastal Georgia. Roughly 540,000 people live on the state’s 100-mile (160-kilometer) coast. Areas to be evacuated include parts of Bryan, Camden, Chatham, Glynn, Liberty, and McIntosh counties.
• Kemp added in his tweet that lanes will be reversed on major Interstate 16 starting at 8 a.m. Tuesday to better lead motorists away from the coast.
• Before the evacuations ahead of Hurricane Matthew in 2016 and Hurricane Irma in 2017, coastal residents had not been ordered to flee a storm since Hurricane Floyd in 1999. That hurricane ended up missing the state before making landfall in North Carolina.

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8:00 P.M.

• Hurricane Dorian is pounding Great Abaco and Grand Bahama islands in the archipelago east of South Florida.
• The U.S. National Hurricane Center says Dorian was centered at 8 p.m. EDT Sunday about 155 miles (250 kilometers) east of West Palm Beach, Florida. It remains a Category 5 storm with top sustained winds of 185 mph (290 kph). The storm is moving west at 5 mph (7 kph).
• Hurricane center specialists say residents of Florida’s east coast now need to keep an eye on the storm in coming hours. They add there is also an increasing likelihood of strong winds and dangerous storm surge along the coasts of Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina later in the week when Dorian is expected to track up the Southeast seacoast.

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7:35 P.M.

• Mandatory evacuation orders in Florida for low-lying and flood-prone areas and mobile homes are taking effect starting either Sunday or Monday from Palm Beach County north to at least the Daytona Beach area, and some counties to the north issued voluntary evacuation notices.
• Weekend traffic was light in Florida despite those orders, unlike during the chaotic run-up to Hurricane Irma in 2017 when unusually broad Irma menaced the entire state. Current forecasts show only Florida’s east coast is affected, meaning residents may choose to flee westward.
• Gov. Ron DeSantis said at a Sunday evening briefing that the light traffic might also be in part due to many residents being seasonal and living elsewhere or already having departed on Labor Day trips. He says remaining residents need to closely monitor forecasts and announcements. “Please prepare, because this thing is a big boy,” DeSantis said.

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6:50 P.M.

• South Carolina’s governor has ordered a mandatory evacuation of his state’s entire coast as Hurricane Dorian threatens.
• Gov. Henry McMaster’s order goes into effect at noon Monday, when state troopers will begin reversing lanes so that people can all head inland on major coastal highways.
• Authorities say the order covers approximately 830,000 people, many of whom will be evacuating for the fourth time in four years.
• McMaster says he knows some people won’t be happy having to leave their home. But he says “we believe we can keep everyone alive.”
• The National Hurricane Center forecasts the center of Dorian is to stay offshore while paralleling the South Carolina coast starting Wednesday afternoon. But a small error in the forecast could send the eye and strongest winds into the state.

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5:55 P.M.

• From Florida to North Carolina, residents and government officials are preparing for possible impacts of Dorian, even as forecasts suggest the hurricane’s powerful core will remain offshore when it heads up the Southeast seacoast.
• Florida resident Mike Lafferty boarded up his house near Vero Beach days ago. He says days of waiting can be bothersome, but it beats being caught unprepared. The National Hurricane Center has a 60% chance of the Vero Beach area getting hurricane force winds before early Wednesday. Says Lafferty: “You have to be ready for it.”
• The Category 5 hurricane battering parts of the Bahamas with nearly unprecedented strength Sunday. The 185 mph (295 kph) winds make it the second-strongest storm in the Atlantic Ocean since 1950.

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5:30 P.M.

• Video authorities say is being circulated by residents of Abaco in the Bahamas shows homes missing parts of their roofs, utility lines down and cars overturned by Hurricane Dorian. One of the videos shows floodwaters rushing through the streets of an unidentified town.
• Bahamas Prime Minister Hubert Minnis is lamenting the devastation from Dorian, a Category 5 monster that began battering northwest portions of the archipelago on Sunday. He says that on parts of the island of Abaco, “you cannot tell the difference as to the beginning of the street versus where the ocean begins.”
• According to the Nassau Guardian, Minnis is calling it “probably the most sad and worst day of my life to address the Bahamian people.”

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4:00 P.M.

• Authorities in the Bahamas are saying they are receiving preliminary reports of heavy damages in areas being pounded by Hurricane Dorian.
• Joy Jibrilu, director general of the Bahamas’ Ministry of Tourism & Aviation, has told reporters there is a huge amount of damage to property and infrastructure from the hurricane crossing the northwest part of the island archipelago. She adds “It’s devastating” but cautions that so far there is “luckily no loss of life reported.”
• Video that was described by Jibrilu as being sent by residents from the island of Abaco on Sunday afternoon showed homes with missing chunks of roofing, downed power lines and smashed and overturned cars. One video, she says, showed floodwaters rushing through the streets of an unidentified town at nearly the height of a car’s roof.
• At 3 p.m. EDT Sunday, Dorian had top sustained winds of 185 mph (295 kph) with gusts topping 220 mph (above 350 kph), according to the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

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3:35 P.M.

The U.S. Coast Guard says it helped the Brevard County Sheriff’s Office rescue two people after a wave knocked them off a boat near the Florida coast as Hurricane Dorian churned in waters to the east.

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2:15 P.M.

• The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Dorian made a second landfall at 2 p.m. on Great Abaco Island near Marsh Harbour at 185 mph (285 kph).
• The center says that is tied for the strongest Atlantic hurricane landfall on record with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane.
• The Hurricane Center said Dorian’s maximum sustained winds stood at a monstrous 185 mph (295 kph), with higher gusts. Dorian is moving west at 7 mph (11 kph).
• The storm’s center is about 185 miles (295 kilometers) east of West Palm Beach, Florida. A Hurricane Watch is in effect for Florida from the north of Deerfield Beach to the Volusia-Brevard county line. Hurricane conditions are possible within the watch area by late Monday or early Tuesday.

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International Space Station Views of Hurricane Dorian – Sept. 01, 2019

While the storm has an incredible appearance from space, it is deadly serious as it slams the northern Bahamas where the National Hurricane Center expects “extreme destruction.”

Cameras outside the International Space Station captured views September 1 of Hurricane Dorian from 260 miles in altitude at 12:16 p.m. Eastern time as it churned over the Atlantic Ocean over the northern Bahamas. The storm, which is moving in a westerly direction with sustained winds of 180 miles an hour, is a dangerous Category 5 hurricane, carrying the strongest winds in recorded history for the northwestern Bahamas. The National Hurricane Center said in its 11 a.m. EDT advisory that Dorian is inflicting catastrophic damage to the Abacos and Grand Bahama Islands. Dorian is forecast to approach the east coast of Florida before taking a possible track up the southeastern U.S. seaboard later this week.

Take a look at Hurricane Dorian from space, as captured by high-definition cameras outside the International Space Station at 12:16 p.m. EDT as the storm churned over the Atlantic Ocean. Moving with sustained winds of 180 miles an hour as a Category 5 hurricane, the storm is carrying the strongest winds in recorded history for the northwestern Bahamas.

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What’s happening:

• Hurricane Dorian upgraded to cat 5 with 160mph sustained winds
• Made landfall in the Bahamas on Sunday
• Hurricane Dorian may miss a direct hit on Florida and instead make its way towards the Carolinas and Georgia
• The National Hurricane Center says the storm’s course remains unpredictable
• North Carolina Governor Roy Cooper also declared a state of emergency
• South Carolina Governor Henry McMaster declared a state of emergency