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Rapidly strengthening Dorian now a category 2 hurricane, top winds at 105 MPH

Posted at 10:59 PM, Aug 29, 2019
and last updated 2019-08-29 23:44:22-04

Hurricane Dorian is now a category 2 story with top winds at 105 MPH, as of the 11 p.m. advisory from he National Hurricane Center. It is slightly below major hurricane classification, which begins at 111 MPH.

The pressure has dropped to 977MB, a drop of 13 MB from from the 5 p.m. advisory.

Dorian is expected to become a category 3 hurricane on Friday.

The National Hurricane Center's official forecast has Dorian making landfall late Monday on the Florida east coast as a major hurricane.

National Hurricane Center forecaster Eric Blake said that Dorian is bound to become a category 4.

"Unfortunately, I don't see any large-scale factors that would prevent Dorian from becoming an extremely dangerous category 4 hurricane during the next few days," Blake said.

Blake noted that there is still a large margin of error on where Dorian comes on shore. Even as Dorian approaches Florida, the entire east coast of the state is still in the crosshairs of the hurricane.

Adding insult to injury is the projected forward speed of the storm. The onslaught of tropical storm winds is slated to arrive Sunday night on the Florida east coast, but landfall of the hurricane isn't expected until Monday evening. It is possible parts of Florida could see up to two full days of tropical storm conditions from Dorian.