13 September, 2017
Hurricane Jose officially became a major hurricane Thursday evening as the National Hurricane Center said the hurricane had top winds at 120 miles per hour.
The category five hurricane is expected to make landfall in southern Florida on Sunday, bringing devastating 290kph winds, before it eases back to a category four.
As of 10pm Thursday, Hurricane Watches and Tropical Storm Warnings were issued for Antigua and Barbuda, while Tropical Storm Watches are in effect for Anguilla, Montserrat, St Kitt, Nevis, Saba and St. Eustatius.
Unlike Harvey, which moved north into Texas, Katia is expected to move into Mexico; the storm could be a Category 3 by the time it makes landfall. Along those parts of the coast, Katia's storm surge - the quick rise in water caused by a hurricane's strong winds - could raise water levels as much as 8 feet above normal tides. The western quadrant of the storm was over the east coast state of Veracruz, Mexico.
Fluctuations in Hurricane Jose's intensity are possible for the next day or so, the National Hurricane Center said, and the storm is expected to gradually weaken after that.
The remnants of Katia are expected to produce additional rainfall accumulations of 3 to 6 inches over central and northern Veracruz, eastern Hidalgo, and northern Puebla through this afternoon.
Two days of satellite imagery from NASA's Terra and NOAA's GOES East satellites showed that Hurricane Katia was starting to crawl to the coast of southeastern Mexico.
On Sept. 7 at 12:45 p.m. EDT (1645 UTC) the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer or MODIS instrument aboard NASA's Aqua satellite captured a visible-light image of Hurricane Jose approaching the Leeward Islands. Jose was moving toward the west-northwest near 18 miles per hour (30 kph).
Maximum sustained winds are near 90 miles per hour (150 kph) with higher gusts.
Earlier this year, scientists at the US National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration predicted an active hurricane season - and it's starting to become clear that they were spot on.