Hurricane Dorian gains fury but could spare Florida

MIAMI (AP) — Hurricane Dorian powered toward Florida with increasing fury Friday — but also indications that it might just skirt the U.S. coastline and spare it from the devastating direct hit that forecasters have been fearing for days.

Forecasters warned that no one is out of danger and Dorian can still wallop the state with “extremely dangerous” 140 miles per hour winds and torrential rains late Monday or early Tuesday, with millions of people in the crosshairs along with Walt Disney World and President Donald Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort.

But some of the more reliable computer models predicted a turn northward that would have Dorian hug the coast, delivering a glancing blow, the National Hurricane Center said.

“We could still be talking about a notable loss but nothing remotely close to if we had a direct hit,” said meteorologist Steve Bowen, global head of catastrophe insights for the reinsurance firm Aon.

The faint, encouraging signs came at the end of a day in which Dorian seemed to get scarier with each forecast update.

It strengthened into a Category 3 hurricane in the afternoon, and there were fears it could prove to the most powerful hurricane to hit Florida’s east coast in nearly 30 years.

Late Friday, the National Hurricane Center’s projected track showed Dorian hitting not far from Palm Beach County, where Mar-a-Lago is situated, then hugging the coastline as it moved north. But forecasters that the storm’s track was still highly uncertain and even a small deviation could put Dorian offshore or well inland.

Trump declared a state of emergency in Florida and authorised the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster-relief efforts.

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