“It’s the most significant threat to the mainland that we’ve had this hurricane season,” a meteorologist says of Hermine’s threat from Florida to Texas.
Hurricane Fiona reached Category 4 on Wednesday, becoming the most powerful storm of the season in the Atlantic Ocean as it travels toward the Bermuda Islands with winds of more than 130 miles per hour; the Canadian coast is already on alert, and the storm surge it causes may also affect the U.S. East Coast, after the devastating damage caused in Puerto Rico; in total, five people have died in the Caribbean islands by this cyclone.
But the growing threat of a new storm that could reach the U.S. mainland next week as a Category 3 cyclone (classified as a major by the National Hurricane Center) is now also taking shape.
A disturbance still without a name (meteorologists know it as Invest 98L, but if it forms now it would be called Hermine) is gaining strength and organizing itself off the Venezuelan coast, and is advancing towards Aruba, Bonaire and Curaçao (known as the ABC islands) with “showers and thunderstorms”, according to the National Hurricane Center, which also warned of its possible impact on the northeast of Colombia.
Most scientific models that forecast cyclone paths predict that it will become a tropical storm this weekend in the Caribbean Sea, advancing between the South American continent and the large islands (Hispaniola and Cuba) to gain strength early next week, according to USA Today.
“It’s the most significant threat to the U.S. mainland that we’ve had this hurricane season,” Jonathan Porter, AccuWeather’s chief meteorologist, told the newspaper.