Incident

Home page

Incident

Karl prepares to hit Mexico; Bermuda awaits Igor

17 September 2010 19:53 (UTC +04:00)

Baku â€“ APA. Hurricane Karl prepared to make landfall in Mexico around midday Friday while Igor, its partner in power, moved toward Bermuda, where it could strike Sunday, APA reports quoting CNN.
The third hurricane in the Atlantic Ocean, Julia, continued to sputter, forecasters said.
At 11 a.m. ET Friday, the center of Category 3 storm Karl was 25 miles (40 km) northeast of Veracruz, Mexico, only hours away from the coast. Maximum sustained winds were near 120 mph (195 kph) and it was moving west at 8 mph (13 kph).
The National Hurricane Center warned that the storm surge could reach 12 to 15 feet. Hurricane warnings and watches were in place along significant portions of Mexico’s eastern coast.
Meanwhile, the two other hurricanes in the tropical trio churned in the open Atlantic Ocean.
At 11 a.m. ET, Hurricane Igor had maximum sustained winds near 120 mph (195 kph). The Category 3 storm was moving toward the northwest at 9 mph (15 kph), but forecasters said its forward speed is expected to increase in the next couple of days.
Igor was about 695 miles (1,120 km) south-southeast of Bermuda. A hurricane watch was in effect for the island, where tropical storm conditions could arrive by late Saturday, the hurricane center said.
Large swells generated by Hurricane Igor will continue to affect the Leeward Islands, Puerto Rico, Hispaniola, the Bahamas and the Virgin Islands, according to the weather agency. These swells are expected to cause dangerous surf- and rip-current conditions in Bermuda over the next several days.
The swells will reach the eastern coast of the United States on Friday and continue through the weekend, possibly causing rip currents.
In the far eastern Atlantic, Category 1 Hurricane Julia continued to weaken.
As of 11 a.m. ET, Julia’s maximum sustained winds were 85 mph (140 kph). The storm was moving west-northwest at about 20 mph (32 kph). The storm’s center was about 1,500 miles (2,415 km) southwest of the Azores Islands.
Julia is expected to slowly weaken and could become a tropical storm late Friday or early Saturday, the hurricane center said.