Hurricane Lee has been storming through the Atlantic, with sustained winds of up to 165 miles per hour. It is this season’s first Category Five storm, which is the highest level possible (a storm of this magnitude has sustained winds of at least 157 miles per hour). Unsurprisingly, Hurricane Lee has left devastation in its wake.
As of Monday, Hurricane Lee has weakened to a Category Three but it has still been able to generate waves of up to five meters high in the Caribbean waters. That day, Hurricane Lee had a maximum sustained wind speed of 115 miles per hour and was moving northwest at a rate of seven miles per hour. The storm will likely pass through the Bermuda Triangle in the following days, until finally reaching New England and the mid-Atlantic states by the end of the week.
Hurricane Lee will continue to send waves to numerous areas on the East Coast. This will result in coastal erosion and dangerous currents at beaches. Rip currents have already killed 71 people in the U.S. this year alone.
Hurricane Lee has already grown since Monday and is predicted to continue to increase in size. By Tuesday, Hurricane Lee’s force winds had already extended 80 miles from its core, a 5-mile increase from Monday. After this slight increase, it is then expected to weaken, then grow in speed and strength once again in the coming days.
In response to Hurricane Lee, 4.5 million meals and around 8.9 million liters of water have already become available in Puerto Rico, and another 600,000 liters of water and 250,000 meals have been deployed in areas such as the U.S. Virgin Islands as part of precautionary measures.
Written by Kevin Han
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