Hurricane Jose Intensifies And Joins Irma As One Of Two Category 4 Storms In The Atlantic

Earlier this week, Hurricane Irma was — incredibly — joined by Jose and Katia to total three active hurricanes in the Atlantic at the same time. This also happened in 2010, but Irma’s record-breaking status, along with the recent impact of Hurricane Harvey in Texas, caused many eyes to pop. And while Irma prepares to strike Miami, Florida and Katia churns away as a Category 2 storm that could strike Mexico in the next 24 hours, Jose’s blossomed into an even more potentially catastrophic storm.

That is, Jose developed into an “extremely dangerous” Category 4 hurricane on Friday morning, thereby joining Irma as one of two storms sustaining 150+ mph winds in the Atlantic, per the National Hurricane Center. Even worse, Jose’s following the same Caribbean path as Irma and is due to ravage the same islands that were crushed earlier this week. Here’s more from CNN:

The storm sits east of the Leeward Islands and is forecast to move west-northwest into the Atlantic Ocean over the coming days. As of Friday at 11 a.m., a hurricane watch was in effect for Antigua, Barbuda and Anguilla; St. Martin; and St. Barthelemy — islands that were all just battered by Hurricane Irma.

As a result of Jose’s intensification, yet another record has been broken this hurricane season, for the Atlantic has never before simultaneously hosted two hurricanes that boast 150+ mph winds.

While Jose will almost certainly increase the misery already wrought upon Caribbean islands that include St. Martin and Barbuda, the storm doesn’t currently present as much of a future U.S. threat as Irma does. According to existing projections by the National Hurricane Center, Jose will mostly likely take an earlier turn north and largely spare the Dominican Republic and Haiti from a direct hit. And it shouldn’t affect Florida at all, although parts of the eastern U.S. could be at risk late next week.

(Via NOAA, CNN & Business Insider)