The Bermu­da Weath­er Ser­vice (BWS) is pre­dict­ing oc­ca­sion­al gale-force gusts would pum­mel ex­posed el­e­va­tions of the is­land on Tues­day as Hur­ri­cane Franklin, a for­mi­da­ble cat­e­go­ry four hur­ri­cane is ex­pect­ed to pass well to the north­west of Bermu­da on Wednes­day.

Sep­tem­ber and Oc­to­ber are es­pe­cial­ly crit­i­cal months in the an­nu­al At­lantic Hur­ri­cane sea­son, which runs from June 1 to No­vem­ber 30 and Na­tion­al Se­cu­ri­ty Min­is­ter, Michael Weeks, notes that the sea­son is ap­proach­ing its height.

The BWS warned the out­flow bound­ary ahead of Hur­ri­cane Franklin was poised to de­liv­er strong souther­ly gusts up to gale force, which will veer west-south­west­er­ly as mod­er­ate to strong winds by the evening, turn­ing west­er­ly overnight.

In its lat­est bul­letin at 5.00 am (lo­cal time), the Mi­a­mi-based Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter (NHC) said the hur­ri­cane is about 385 miles west south west of Bermu­da with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 140 miles per hour (mph).

A Trop­i­cal Storm Watch is in ef­fect for Bermu­da and the NHC said that it means that trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions are pos­si­ble with­in the watch area, gen­er­al­ly with­in 48 hours.

Ac­cord­ing to the NHC, the cen­ter of Hur­ri­cane Franklin was lo­cat­ed near lat­i­tude 30.2 North, lon­gi­tude 70.8 West and is mov­ing to­wards the north-north­east near nine mph.

“A north-north­east­ward to north­east­ward mo­tion with a faster for­ward speed is ex­pect­ed dur­ing the next few days. On the fore­cast track, the cen­ter of Franklin is ex­pect­ed to pass well to the north­west of Bermu­da on Wednes­day.”

It said max­i­mum sus­tained winds have de­creased to near 140 mph with high­er gusts. “How­ev­er, Franklin is still a for­mi­da­ble cat­e­go­ry 4 hur­ri­cane on the Saf­fir-Simp­son Hur­ri­cane Wind Scale. Steady weak­en­ing is fore­cast dur­ing the next sev­er­al days.”

The NHC said that life-threat­en­ing surf and rip cur­rents gen­er­at­ed by Franklin are al­ready af­fect­ing Bermu­da and the coast of the south­east Unit­ed States.

“These con­di­tions are ex­pect­ed to spread north­ward along the east coast of the Unit­ed States and At­lantic Cana­da lat­er to­day in­to Wednes­day.”

MI­A­MI, Aug 29, CMC

CMC/ag/ir/2023