Bermuda is under a hurricane warning this afternoon as Hurricane Joaquin makes a very close call with the tiny island that sits 650 miles east of the United States. It’s rare for hurricanes to make a direct landfall on Bermuda due to its tiny size; last year, however, two hurricanes—Fay and Gonzalo—made landfall on the island in one week.

Joaquin is on a slow weakening trend after bombing-out at an impressive 155 MPH near the Bahamas on Friday, putting it just 1 MPH away from a top-of-the-scale category five. The latest advisory from the National Hurricane Center shows Joaquin as a category two storm with 100 MPH winds. The storm could bring strong winds and heavy rain to the Ireland and the United Kingdom next week as Joaquin transitions to an extratropical cyclone as it races across the Atlantic.

Hurricane Joaquin raked the central Bahamas with intense winds, flooding rains, and a deep storm surge for several days last week as it very slowly made a turn from the southwest to the northeast. Long Island and Crooked Island took the worst hit from the storm, where large swaths of trees were blown down and many structures were damaged or destroyed.

The U.S. Coast Guard is still looking for a Puerto Rico-bound cargo ship with that may have sunk off the islands during the height of the storm. 33 people were reportedly aboard the ship when it went missing, and crews have found debris and oil in the water near its last known location.

[Image: NASA]

Email: dennis.mersereau@gawker.com | Twitter: @wxdam

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