Tropical Storm Lee is expected to rapidly intensify into an extremely dangerous major hurricane with potential top wind speeds of 150 mph by the weekend as it travels toward the Caribbean and Bahamas, National Hurricane Center forecasters said Wednesday.
Lee is expected to become a hurricane Wednesday, strengthening into a major hurricane with wind speeds greater than 111 mph on Friday. The latest NHC forecast discussion said Lee’s maximum sustained winds could reach up to 150 mph, putting it at the higher end of the Category 4 range.
Lee would be the fourth Atlantic hurricane of the 2023 season, behind Don, Franklin and Idalia. Franklin and Idalia were major hurricanes, meaning Category 3 or above.
As of 5 a.m. Wednesday, Lee was 1,265 miles east-southeast of the Leeward Islands, the eastern boundary of the Caribbean. Lee was moving west-northwest at 16 mph with maximum sustained winds of 65 mph, a 20-mph increase over late Tuesday.
Forecasters said Tuesday that “it is becoming a question of when and not if” Lee will rapidly intensify. Wind shear “could keep Lee in check for the next day or two,” but that is expected to decrease by Friday, allowing Lee to rapidly intensify as it moves over abnormally warm water.
“There is increasing confidence on Lee becoming a very powerful hurricane by this weekend,” the hurricane center said.
Its trajectory has it headed in the general direction of the Bahamas and potentially Florida.
It was too early to know exactly how close the system will get to the islands of the eastern Caribbean, though they could feel impacts by the weekend, the National Hurricane Center’s latest update said. The current cone indicating the probable path of the eye of the storm sits just north of Puerto Rico.
Several forecasting models show the storm steering north at some point. It remains unclear when, exactly, that would happen, and where that would place the storm. A sharp turn north would take the storm away from South Florida.
“The high pressure to the north of it, that’s what’s going to steer it,” said Anthony Reynes, senior forecaster with the National Weather Service in Miami.
“Tropical systems, they cannot go against the flow of the high pressure, they have to go around it … once it moves to the north of Puerto Rico, it’s going to start shifting more to the north and eventually northeast. The cyclone is moving around the edge of that high.”
There also will be a low pressure trough moving east over the U.S. that should also contribute to the northward motion of the storm, he said.
The system will be traveling over record-warm water, close to 86 degrees.
The National Weather Service Miami said Tuesday night on the social media platform X, formerly known as Twitter, that South Florida is not expected to be directly impacted but reminded South Floridians that it is now peak hurricane season and to ensure supplies are ready.
Another tropical depression could form later in the week or this weekend from a tropical wave off the coast of Africa that is expected to move west-northwest toward the central tropical Atlantic.
As of 8 a.m. Wednesday, its odds of developing were at 60% within seven days, and 30% within two days. It will move over the Cabo Verde Islands off Africa on Wednesday night and Thursday, the hurricane center said.
Meanwhile, the remnants of Hurricane Franklin were given a 10% chance of gaining “some subtropical or tropical characteristics” in the next seven days over the warm waters near Portugal. It is not expected to further develop, though, by later in the week.
The National Hurricane Center, which operates under the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, has forecast 14 to 21 named storms, including six to 11 hurricanes, and two to five major hurricanes.
The National Hurricane Center has been predicting an “above-normal” 2023 hurricane season as a result of ongoing record-breaking sea surface temperatures that continue to fight off the tempering effects of El Niño.
While sea-surface temperatures have remained hot for longer than anticipated, El Niño’s effects, which typically reduce hurricane chances, have emerged more slowly.
