Hurricane Katia, the sixth hurricane of the 2017 season, is expected to make landfall in Mexico early Saturday morning.
Katia transitioned from a tropical storm to a hurricane on Wednesday afternoon, and was a Category 2 hurricane as of 4 p.m. Friday, with sustained wind speeds of 105 mph. The storm’s center is located about 125 miles north of Veracruz, Mexico, and is moving southwest at 7 mph.
The National Hurricane Center has issued a hurricane warning for coastal areas of Mexico between Cabo Rojo and Laguna Verde. Along those parts of the coast, Katia’s storm surge – the quick rise in water caused by a hurricane’s strong winds – could raise water levels as much as 8 feet above normal tides. Areas of Mexico to the north of Cabo Rojo and to the south of Laguna Verde are under a tropical-storm warning.
By Saturday afternoon, the hurricane is expected to be downgraded to a tropical storm.
Katia is a much smaller storm than Hurricane Irma, which is causing devastation in the Caribbean and is expected to arrive in Florida this weekend. The storm’s hurricane-force winds (classified as 74 mph or higher) extend 25 miles out from the center, and the radius of tropical-storm-force winds extends about 70 miles. Irma, on the other hand, is nearly 400 miles wide.
Katia is expected to drop 10 to 15 inches of rain over parts of Veracruz, eastern Hidalgo, and Puebla, Mexico. In isolated areas, total accumulated rainfall could be as high as 25 inches.
The National Hurricane Center is warning that “this rainfall will likely cause life-threatening flash floods and mudslides, especially in areas of mountainous terrain.”
The 2017 hurricane season was projected to be unusually active, and that has certainly been the case so far. Three hurricanes are in the Atlantic simultaneously: Katia, Jose, and Irma.
The peak of the season is usually around September 10, and the fourth hurricane of the season doesn’t typically occur until about September 21. Katia is already the sixth.
Texas and Louisiana are still reeling from the flooding and destruction left by Hurricane Harvey at the end of August.
Het bericht Hurricane Katia, the 6th hurricane of an unusually active season, expected to hit Mexico within 12 hours verscheen eerst op Business Insider.