HURRICANE IRMA UPDATE: ABACO, BAHAMAS

It’s Friday afternoon. Irma is spinning her destructive progress through the Bahamas towards… well, right at the moment it seems to be Andros and then towards the Florida coast and northwards up the panhandle. Abaco is not currently shown in the direct firing line – but there’s no doubt that the passage of such a massive storm will mean plenty of dirty weather very soon now. 

I have just taken a screenshot (above) of the live tracker I am using. Top right is a realtime satellite view of Irma’s current position. Bottom left is the predicted position later this weekend. The fiercest part of the storm will have passed over Andros and carried on northwest, a path further west of Abaco than recently forecast. We must hope so, remembering of course that one location’s dodged bullet will inevitably be another’s bullseye.

In the tracker realtime shot above, it’s impossible to ignore the lurking menace of Hurricane Jose – recently graded Cat 4 – to the east. Here’s the latest Jose tracker I can find for today. Right now (but who knows for how long) this system looks as though it may hook north and expend its savage energy in the open ocean.

And here is the latest Irma tracker, as I write. It looks as if the storm may dissipate after it has made landfall at the southern tip of Florida, but it will clearly be very unpleasant down there I’m afraid.

There’s been some interest in the International Space Station ISS images I posted yesterday. The serenity of the view of a hurricane topside is so at odds with the ferocity of the weather beneath and the destruction being wrought on the ground. And they work on the imagination: suppose you were in that capsule, moving with eerie calmness through the sky, looking at the swirling mass of white cloud far below…?

Today’s screenshots were taken during yesterday’s ISS pass over Irma, using external cameras. The one below is the last in the sequence, an upside-down view looking rather like some pale alien spaceship hanging above a dark earth.

I’ll be watching events during the weekend. By the time I next write, the storm will have passed the Bahamas, and the assessments will have begun. From a safe distance of 4250 miles, I will be thinking of those who are already counting the cost; those currently enduring the brutality; and those still awaiting Irma’s malice.

THE EVIL EYE

Credits: all images ISS / NASA; live tracker from NotableMedia; tracker images for Jose & Irma from Wunderground