Hurricane Lee on Friday charged through warm Atlantic waters as the season’s first Category 5 storm, threatening to unleash heavy swells across the northeast Caribbean.
Hurricane Lee continued to strengthen “at an exceptional rate” on Thursday night after jumping multiple storm categories in mere hours.
It strengthened into a Category 5 storm just before 11PM, per the National Hurricane Center.
This powerful hurricane is forecast to move north of the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico, and may slow down east-northeast of the Bahamas this weekend.
This was the first time the NHC forecast a hurricane to reach Category 5 intensity when it was still just a Category 2 storm.
Some computer models call for the storm to intensify into one of the strongest, if not the strongest, hurricane yet observed in the Atlantic Basin, a clear result of record warm ocean waters.
These are tied in part to human-caused climate change and favorable atmospheric conditions.
