The hurricane season is particularly active in the Atlantic Ocean. After Hurricane Harvey struck Texas, an even more powerful hurricane hit the West Indies, the Caribbean, and Florida. Irma became a Category 5 hurricane of unprecedented strength in the North Atlantic Ocean.
Irma formed about 500 km west of the Cape Verde Islands on Wednesday, August 30, 2017. Fueled by increasingly warm tropical waters, the tropical storm gained strength and, within a few days, became a hurricane of Category 5 (the highest level on the Saffir-Simpson open scale, which classifies hurricanes).
On September 5, 2017, Irma became the most powerful hurricane ever recorded in the region. With a diameter of about 600 km and an eye 50 km wide, it reached colossal power.
The professor of atmospheric science Kerry Emanuel A researcher at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology estimated that Irma released about 7 trillion watts of power—twice the energy of all the bombs used during World War II… according to The Independent.
For 37 hours, Irma generated winds of 300 km/h, breaking the 24-hour record set by the Super Typhoon Haiyan in late 2013.
With an atmospheric pressure of 913 hPa and A gust measured at 363 km/h at sea during the night from Tuesday to Wednesday, September 6, Irma has become one of the most powerful cyclones ever recorded on Earth.
Irma is accompanied by torrential rains: NASA satellites measured 274 mm per hour (or 274 liters of water per square meter) near the eye of the hurricane as it passed over the French Lesser Antilles. In addition, due to the very low atmospheric pressure, Irma caused a storm surge that led to widespread coastal flooding: “The rise in sea level exceeded 3 m at certain points along the coastline,” according to Météo-France.
A view of Hurricane Irma from the International Space Station (ISS).
Credit: NASA
