As of Saturday evening, Irma remains a powerful category 2 hurricane in the Atlantic and it's expected to become even more powerful.
Maximum sustained winds were estimated to be at 110 mph with higher gusts. Irma was moving west at 14 mph.
While we've seen fluctuations in intensity over the past 24 hours, models are in fairly good agreement that Irma will continue to strengthen over the coming days and could be a major hurricane again by Sunday. Further intensification is also possible and Irma could reach category 4 status by the middle of the week as it passes near the Lesser/Greater Antilles.
Most long range models are still showing a recurvature to the northwest before Irma reaches the US East Coast. However, it is not out of the realm of possibility that Irma ends up somewhere in the Gulf. The bottom line is Irma is still more than 2,000 miles away from Southwest Florida and it's still far too early to speculate the exact path Irma will take. Any impacts are still about a week away at this point. All locations along the East Coast of the United States should pay very close attention to this one.
We will keep you updated.
FOX 4 METEOROLOGIST TONY SADIKU
