The Category 5 storm is breaking records and headed towards Puerto Rico and the Bahamas. Florida may be next.
Hurricane Irma's winds are stronger than if you were to add up all of the winds of the prior eight storms Atlantic storms together at maximum intensity.
That's just one shattering measure of the storm's strength from meteorologist Phil Klotzbach, research scientist at Colorado State University's Department of Atmospheric Science. Irma's 185 mph winds make it the strongest storm on record in the Atlantic Ocean outside of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, according to Klotzbach's research, which he shared with The Daily Beast.
"Most of the other storms this season were pretty weak and short-lived. While Harvey was intense, it was intense for a short time period before making landfall," Klotzbach said.
The newest of Georgia's winter resorts, Tetnuldi in Svaneti region in the western part of the country, has experienced its very first snowfall this year today even though winter is almost three months away.
The first snowfall at Tetnuldi has been described as a light dusting and is believed not to last long, but in the coolest months snowfall can be very high and can reach several metres.
Weather experts forecast slushy snow may fall in other mountainous regions of Georgia in the coming days, but despite this, citizens are being advised not to dig out their winter coats just yet as daytime temperatures around the country are set to rise.
Two other giant storms - Katia and Jose - have grown to hurricane levels, and now trail the calamitous Category 5 Hurricane Irma, which has battered the Caribbean and is headed toward the southern coast of Florida.
Katia, a Category 1 hurricane as of Wednesday evening, is in the Gulf of Mexico and is expected to make landfall in Mexico late Friday or early Saturday.
The storm is forecast to produce up to 10 inches of rain, with the possibility of 15 inches in northern Veracruz, according to the National Hurricane Center.
"This rainfall may cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, especially in areas of mountainous terrain," NHC said.
For comparison, Hurricane Harvey unloaded over 50 inches of rain east of Houston, Texas last week.
An investigation is underway after two whales washed up dead on Rhode Island shores in two days.
Mystic Aquarium's Animal Rescue Team received a call on Sept. 5 about a dead humpback whale off of the Mohegan Bluffs on Block Island. The Animal Rescue and Veterinary Teams will travel to the location for sampling or necropsy as weather permits within the upcoming days, according to the aquarium.
A dead minke whale was also found Wednesday afternoon on the shores of Scarborough State Beach in Narragansett. The Animal Rescue and Veterinary Teams collected several samples and will be sent out for further analysis, however due to the advanced stage of decomposition, they will not perform a necropsy.
Mystic Aquarium said there have been a total of five whale-stranding responses so far in 2017. Although it is coincidental the two whales washed up within a day of each other, Mystic Aquarium cannot draw conclusions about the relativity.
A number of earthquakes were detected at Bárðarbunga in Vatnajökull tonight, according to the Icelandic Met Office. The largest quake was 4.1 in magnitude, with another one following at 4.0.
The quakes were a total of 21, with three of them over 3.0 in magnitude. There are currently no signs of increased volcanic activity in the area, although it has seen a large number of quakes over the past years.
Bárðarbunga is located north-west of Vatnajökull, Iceland's largest glacier. It is considered a highly active volcanic area, having last erupted between the years 2014-2015.
A grizzly bear feasting on an elk carcass charged a bow hunter in Montana and attacked him, slashing a 16-inch (41-centimeter) cut in the man's head that required 90 stitches to close.
"The bear just flat-out charged us," said Tom Sommer, as he recovered in a Montana hospital on Tuesday afternoon. He said it closed the 30-foot (9-meter) distance in 3 or 4 seconds.
"It bit my thigh, ran his claws through my wrist and proceeded to attack my head," Sommer said. "I could hear bones crunching, just like you read about."
Sommer said he and a hunting partner were looking for an elk they had been calling Monday morning when his partner spotted the grizzly in the southern end of the Gravelly Range, just north of the Idaho border.
South Padre Island Fire Department Chief Doug Fowler confirmed Wednesday that a shark bit a woman near beach access 14 off of South Padre Island on Saturday.
The woman was knee-deep into the water when she felt a sharp pain on her foot, according to Fowler. Fowler says she did not suffer any life-threatening injuries.
"This is a really rare instance, and the people I've talked to can't remember another time in their lives when this happened on the island," Fowler said. "We take it very seriously--the safety of our beach goers and we work really hard in order to try to ensure their safety."
Fowler added that beach patrol will continue to stay vigilant as they check warning flags, patrol around the beach and, if necessary, move people from the beach if they're in harm's way.
Houses and infrastructure on Barbuda have been "totally demolished," Antigua and Barbuda PM told media following a helicopter trip to the Caribbean island. The island of 1,600 residents went radio silent for over twelve hours, causing wild speculations over their fate.
Conflicting reports emerged in the vacuum of information and the absence of direct communication with the island. Some claimed that 1,000 people had died but this was quickly debunked, with calls for people to wait for official confirmation before retweeting carelessly and generating unnecessary panic and dismay.
The prime minister of Antigua and Barbuda, Gaston Browne, has confirmed one fatality after making a roundtrip to the island on a helicopter.
"There has been a fatality. An infant died as a result of their mother trying to escape a damaged property. We are not too sure of the cause of death," Browne told local ABS news in an interview.
Browne said the scenes he witnessed on the island were "heart-wrenching."
"If I was a crying man, I would have cried," Browne told ABS. "[It was] one of the worst feelings I have ever felt in my entire life... Absolute devastation, this is no hyperbole."
A third hurricane is set to threaten the US in the space of six days.
Katia, a storm off the Mexican coast, has strengthened into a hurricane, the US National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
It is 185 miles (295 km) east of Tampico, Mexico, and has maximum sustained winds of 75 miles per hour (120 kph).
In the next 48 hours some additional strengthening is also forecast, the NHC added.
Models so far show it remaining in the southern Gulf in the coming days.
The news comes as tropical storm Jose was upgraded to a hurricane in the Atlantic, far east of Hurricane Irma, which is currently heading towards Florida.
Comment: While climate scientists are now saying Harvey "should serve as a warning", they are not considering the importance of atmospheric dust loading and the winning Electric Universe model in their research. Such information and much more, are explained in the book Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk.
The accumulation of cometary dust in the Earth's atmosphere plays an important role in the increase of tornadoes, cyclones, hurricanes and their associated rainfalls, snowfalls and lightning. To understand this mechanism we must first take into account the electric nature of hurricanes, tornadoes and cyclones, which are actually manifestations of the same electric phenomenon at different scales or levels of power.
Heavy rain and 185-mph winds lashed the Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico's northeast coast Wednesday as Hurricane Irma roared through Caribbean islands on its way to a possible hit on South Florida.
The strongest Atlantic Ocean hurricane ever measured destroyed homes and flooded streets across a chain of small islands in the northern Caribbean, passing directly over Barbuda and leaving the island of some 1,700 people incommunicado.
France sent emergency food and water rations to the French islands of Saint Martin and Saint Barthelemy, where Irma ripped off roofs and knocked out all electricity. Dutch marines who flew to three Dutch islands hammered by Irma reported extensive damage but no deaths or injuries.
While France received no immediate reports of casualties, the minister for French overseas territories, Annick Girardin, said: "We have a lot to fear for a certain number of our compatriots who unfortunately didn't want to listen to the protection measures and go to more secure sites ... We're preparing for the worst."
Comment: While climate scientists are now saying Harvey "should serve as a warning", they are not considering the importance of atmospheric dust loading and the winning Electric Universe model in their research. Such information and much more, are explained in the book Earth Changes and the Human Cosmic Connection by Pierre Lescaudron and Laura Knight-Jadczyk. Increasing cometary and volcanic dust loading of the atmosphere (one indicator is the intensification of noctilucent clouds we are witnessing) is accentuating electric charge build-up, whereby we can expect to observe more extreme weather and planetary upheaval as well as awesome light shows and other related mysterious phenomena.
See also: Study: Tornado outbreaks are increasing - but scientists don't understand why. A coauthor of this paper states "What's pushing this rise in extreme outbreaks is far from obvious in the present state of climate science."