I thought and said there was a good chance that Irma would take the southerly track and...unfortunately it is.
Puerto Rico and the Dominican Republic will likely be hit but on the windward side, so look for wind damage, but less rain than if Irma went to their south and they got hit on the leeward side. (If you divide a hurricane in half based on the direction it's traveling, the windward side is the right side and the leeward side is the left side. Flip that in the Southern Hemisphere. The windward side has most of the water and the leeward side returns at higher speed due to less moisture. Over water, hurricanes tend to look pretty symmetrical, but once over land, they sometimes look like a Nike swoosh.)
The Bahamas are looking to take a direct hit.
Beyond that, who knows?
I mean, it could stay south, hit Puerto Rico, Dom Rep/Haiti and even Cuba before getting to the Gulf, but that's unlikely unless the Gulfstream swings south and strong.
It's much more likely to stay on this southerly swing and depending on how strong the High is in the Atlantic, do-si-do around it and head north.
I really think there's a very good chance that it hits the US between Florida and North Carolina.
My very amateur meteorologist instincts tell me that it will get close to Florida, but hit the Carolinas.
Lastly, don't be lulled by the 115mph sustained winds. It's in a dry patch of air and will have smaller spin-ups and slow downs as it exits the dry air and has interactions with land, but the water around the Bahamas is very warm and very wet, so expect a pretty substantial spin-up between Thursday and Friday. I expect we'll see models on Monday or Tuesday that show speeds at landfall to be in the 135-140mph range.
If there's one good thing about Irma is that she's hell bent for election. She's moving at 14mph which is pretty damn fast for a hurricane. Irma won't do the kind of water damage that Harvey did, but she's gonna pack a punch.
