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ATLANTA – A fast-moving tropical cyclone strengthened Monday in Hurricane Michael and threatened to hit Florida as early as Wednesday, endangering a vast expanse of the state without notice.
The system's risks also extend hundreds of kilometers inland and it is about to bombard southern and central Atlantic regions as a tropical storm, endangering the recovering regions. who are still recovering from the flood of Hurricane Florence last month.
In a notice released Monday morning, the National Hurricane Center suggested that the storm would hit the ground Wednesday as a Category 3 hurricane, with sustained winds of at least 111 miles to l & # 39; hour.
"This storm will be life threatening and extremely dangerous," said Florida Governor Rick Scott at a televised news conference in Southport, Florida, just north of Panama City.
"Michael can always change direction and have an impact on any part of the state," said Scott, who warned that some areas could receive up to 1 foot of rain and that destructive winds could hit both along the coast, in places such as Panama and inland, including Tallahassee, the capital. Local officials were wondering if there was a need to order evacuations from some communities.
[[[[As storms continue, FEMA spends billions of dollars on a "damage and repair cycle". Read more here.]
Hours after Scott's appearance in Southport, the hurricane center reported that the storm had struck about 140 miles northeast of Cozumel, Mexico, with sustained maximum winds of 75 mph, just above the threshold to be called hurricane. The storm was moving north at a speed of 7 km / h, leading to watches and warnings in Cuba, Mexico and the United States.
A hurricane warning was in effect for Pinar del Rio, a province in western Cuba, and a hurricane warning was posted from the border between Alabama and Florida and the Suwannee River in Florida.
"A steady to rapid build is expected in the coming days and Michael is expected to become a major hurricane by Tuesday or Tuesday night," the center said Monday.
However, federal and national authorities have increasingly asked residents not to judge storms solely by their Saffir-Simpson scale categorization, which is based solely on wind speed. With Hurricane Michael, they are particularly concerned about the storm surge in a particularly vulnerable area and warn of an increase of 8 to 12 feet in some areas.
[[[[How does the hurricane categorization system work? Learn more here.]
If the storm occurs as expected, it is the most powerful tropical cyclone that has hit the continental United States so far this year. Although Hurricane Florence once seemed likely to cause catastrophic winds, it finally landed as a Category 1 hurricane.
Preparations for the storm began this weekend in Florida, with the weather system quickly becoming a tropical depression and then a tropical storm. And as the hours passed, the predictions got worse for a system that only a few days ago was uncertain, even to turn into the 13th named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season.
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