Hurricane Idalia has been upgraded to category four before its expected arrival “within a few hours” on the coast of Florida, in the southeastern United States, the US Hurricane Center (NHC) announced.
“Idalia is a category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale and continues to gain strength as it approaches the US coast, where a part of the population has been evacuated,” the NHC said in a statement.
The Saffir-Simpson scale, established since 1971, has five categories.
According to the latest data, Hurricane Idalia is advancing towards the Big Bend region of Florida, in the United States, threatening to cause heavy rains and winds of around 209 kilometers per hour.
The hurricane struck Cuba at Cape San Antonio, at the western end of the island, on Monday at 9:00 p.m. (2:00 a.m. Tuesday in Lisbon), as a category one hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale.
After Idalia made landfall in Florida in the Gulf of Mexico, the hurricane is expected to continue inland across the northern part of the state, southeast Georgia, and near the coast of South Carolina.
More than 1.6 million people were ordered to leave their homes in Florida as the hurricane approached.
The governor, who declared a state of emergency in 46 of Florida’s 67 counties, urged residents of coastal cities and flood-prone areas to comply with mandatory and voluntary evacuation orders issued in the past 24 hours.
Source: TSF
