Hurricane Irma is currently a category 3 storm with sustained winds of about 115 miles per hour, according to the latest National Hurricane Center update.

It is expected to become a monstrous category 5 storm with winds that could reach 180 miles per hour or worse.

Irma is in the center of the Atlantic Ocean, moving west or northwest, according to the NHC. They describe Irma as an “impressive” hurricane with intense eyewall convection, around a small eye. They say the storm’s windspeed nearly doubled from yesterday to today, which is a drastically anomalous rate of increase.

According to MSN:

“Whatever its future path, forecasters said Irma is still expected to be a major hurricane when it nears the Lesser Antilles next week. Some islands could see dangerous wind, storm surge and heavy rain, they said.

If Irma reaches Florida, it could take at least 10 days, a long time to predict tracks with any certainty, said former hurricane center director Rick Knabb, now a hurricane expert at the Weather Channel.”

Current projections predict that the hurricane may make landfall in the Caribbean sometime near the middle of next week.

However, longer term models vary wildly and suggest that the hurricane might hit land in the US, either in Florida or the Gulf of Mexico again.

Meteorological Scientist Michael Ventrice described the forecasted windspeeds of up to 180 miles per hour as the “highest windspeed forecasts I’ve ever seen in my 10 years of Atlantic hurricane forecasting.”

(Image credit: Zero Hedge)