Hurricane Joaquin continues to pummel the central and northwestern Bahamas with maximum sustained winds of 130 miles per hour. Since the hurricane has only been drifting west-southwest at five to 10 miles per hour, and is now making a turn to the north, the storm has battered the islands almost nonstop for at least 48 hours. Few on Earth have ever experienced such a long period of hurricane conditions.
Computer models have come into agreement that the storm will track off the East Coast, easing fears of a direct hit in the Carolinas, Mid-Atlantic or northeast. However, it may come close enough to Cape Cod to bring rain and wind to that area early next week. The storm does pose a direct threat to the Canadian Maritimes, where it will be transitioning into a larger, non-tropical system.
Viewed from the ground, Hurricane Joaquin is no doubt a terrifying beast of a storm. Yet from space and other vantage points, it exhibits a strange beauty that only the strongest storms can posses.
Joaquin has accomplices
Ghostly in black and white; startling in color
An ark may soon be needed in Carolinas
The interaction with Hurricane Joaquin, a tropical moisture pipeline from the Pacific to the Carolinas, with a connection to another pipeline pumping moisture northward from the Caribbean, is already dumping rain at the rate of 1 to 2 inches per hour in North and South Carolinas.
The National Weather Service is forecasting potentially historic amounts of rain in the next few days, with up to 15 to 20 inches possible in some spots.
Coastal flood threat is no joke
Although Hurricane Joaquin is not expected to make landfall along the East Coast, it is contributing to an extended period of strong onshore winds along the coast, which is bringing high surf, beach erosion and coastal flooding.
This chart, which looks more complicated than it is, shows that coastal flooding will last for several days in Cape May, New Jersey.
It's in no hurry to end its vacation in the Bahamas
The storm is the fourth-most intense hurricane ever to hit the Bahamas in recorded history, based on its minimum central air pressure, a commonly used metric for storm intensity.
The view from the International Space Station
