WEST PALM BEACH, Fla. — Hurricane Jeanne, which caused hundreds of deaths in the Caribbean, could threaten Florida by the weekend, meteorologists warned late Wednesday.
The forecasted path calls for the storm to angle toward the Space Coast, then shift north and northeast well offshore Saturday and Sunday, eventually aiming at the Carolinas.
But the three-day forecast's "cone of probability" stretches from the upper Keys almost to Jacksonville.
And if the storm shifts more to the west, hurricane watches could be posted for parts of Florida by late today or Friday, National Hurricane Center meteorologist Robbie Berg said Wednesday evening.
Jeanne has company. A remnant of Ivan was reborn Wednesday in the Gulf of Mexico. And Lisa and Karl continued to swirl, although neither was an immediate threat to the United States.
Jeanne has already killed more than 1,000 people in the Caribbean, most of them in floods in Haiti.
Earlier this week, its forecasted path had been more of a straight line toward the mid-Atlantic. But, Berg said, "Some of our model guidance has been shifting more to the west the last day or so."
"The issue right now is there's a strong high pressure ridge north of Jeanne," he said. "That's what's steering it to the west. Depending on how strong the high is will dictate how far to the west Jeanne will move before it turns to the north."
Should the storm aim directly toward Florida, it would not arrive before the weekend, Berg said. But because it's so close to the coast, there's not a lot of wiggle room.
Regardless of where it goes, Jeanne is expected to bring dangerous surf and rip currents to the south Florida coast for the next few days.
Wednesday evening Jeanne was about 685 miles east-southeast of Palm Beach. It was moving southwest near 5 mph and was expected to turn more toward the west late Wednesday or today.
Sustained winds were near 100 mph, about those of Frances. That makes Jeanne a Category 2 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale. Hurricane force winds extended up to 45 miles and tropical storm force winds up to 140 miles.
The National Weather Service posted a high surf advisory Wednesday afternoon for most of Florida's eastern coastline, including the area from Fort Pierce to Boca Raton. The advisory particularly warned of deadly rip currents. Swells will make inlets especially treacherous, the weather service's advisory said. It said the rough conditions will continue at least through today.
"All bets are off for the weekend," Rusty Pfost, meteorologist-in-charge at the weather service's Miami office, said Wednesday. "It depends on just how close Jeanne actually comes."
A buoy about 75 miles off Cape Canaveral reported 17-foot swells Wednesday afternoon, Pfost said.
"Grand Bahama usually protects Palm Beach County and the rest of South Florida, but the problem is the wind is coming from the northeast," Pfost said. He warned that beach areas around Jupiter, angled such that they face northeast, are especially vulnerable.
Meanwhile, a piece of Ivan that brought wind and rain to Palm Beach County and the Treasure Coast Monday and Tuesday was found to have a circulation and 35-mph winds and was declared Tropical Depression Ivan, hurricane center specialist Stacy Stewart said. It was expected to make landfall late tonight or early Friday somewhere between northeast Texas and southwest Louisiana, Stewart said.
Tropical Storm Lisa, 2,600 miles east-southeast of Palm Beach, was moving slowly. The five-day forecast calls for it to become a hurricane by Sunday afternoon. The forecast has it moving southwest, then turning sharply to the northwest Friday and into the open Atlantic. But it might be overcome by a nearby tropical disturbance, Stewart said.
And Hurricane Karl continued to track harmlessly to the north about 1,950 miles east of Palm Beach. It was expected to become a tropical storm Saturday and approach Iceland early next week.