Hurricane Dorian nearing Florida and Bahamas: Here’s when and where

Hurricane Dorian, a Category 4 storm east of the Bahamas as of Saturday morning, is slowly churning towards Florida, Georgia, and South Carolina, where it is expected to bring “life-threatening storm surge and devastating hurricane-force winds” early next week after it moves over the northwestern Bahamas.

Specifically, Google projections place the hurricane’s path directly over the island of Great Abaco. The National Hurricane Center (NHC) has issued a hurricane warning for the northwestern Bahamas, where tropical-storm-force winds are expected over the weekend.

The storm is on track to reach the islands by Sunday, bringing hurricane-force winds, up to 20 inches of rain, a “life-threatening storm surge” of 10 to 15 feet, and “large and destructive waves,” according to the NHC.

Dorian is then projected to move towards Florida, nearing the state’s east coast late Monday. While the forecast cone is wider as the hurricane approaches the coast, Google’s Saturday morning projections no longer show landfall in Florida, veering north instead toward the coasts of Georgia and South Carolina.

Both Florida and South Carolina have declared states of emergency, with the latter declaring on Saturday in the wake of the new hurricane trajectory. The emergency state gives the governors the ability to mobilize the National Guard and state agency employeees to prepare for the storm, as well as enact anti-price gouging laws and allow for the possibility of federal aid.

NHC forecasters say the trajectory could change, however, and has proven difficult to predict this week. The Associated Press reports that a low-pressure system could pull the storm north, while a high-pressure system could push the storm closer to south Florida.

Read more: Hurricane Dorian, an ‘extremely dangerous’ storm, could hit the Bahamas and Florida as a Category 4 hurricane and drop up to 20 inches of rain