Hurricane Irma: Shelter Early Saturday Morning Around Miami: NWS

MIAMI, FL — With the window narrowing before Hurricane Irma's dreaded arrival in South Florida, meteorologists at the National Weather Service in Miami said late Friday afternoon that they now have a much better idea of the time frame the storm is most likely to strike the Miami area and the potential impacts of the storm.

All of South Florida has been under a hurricane warning since Thursday night, and much of the area has also been under a storm surge warning. Based on the best information available, forecasters are now more confident in telling Miamians to be where they plan to ride out the storm by early Saturday and plan to stay there possibly into Monday.

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Kevin Scharfenberg of the National Weather Service warned on Friday afternoon that the initial squalls from Hurricane Irma will start to hit on Friday night and everyone should he sheltered by Saturday morning. (For more hurricane news or local news from Florida, click here to sign up for real-time news alerts and newsletters from Miami Patch, and click here to find your local Florida Patch. If you have an iPhone, click here to get the free Patch iPhone app.)

"We want people to take their final shelter by early Saturday morning because as we get into the morning hours, the squalls should become a lot more frequent and more intense," he told several reporters between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m. "And then as we get into the later parts of the daylight hours tomorrow, we may get into the more steady heavy rain and damaging winds."

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The brunt of the storm will begin later in the day on Saturday.

"Really tomorrow night and into early Sunday is when the core of the hurricane should be coming through," he said. "Then Sunday morning …. it looks like the most likely time for the most extreme winds and impacts."

He said Irma will be slower than Hurricane Andrew 25 years earlier. "It's not going to be moving super fast. Andrew came through probably in 12 to 24 hours whereas this one it’s a very large storm so for that reason it’s going to take a little longer to get through, also moving a little bit slower."

He said that forecasters anticipate that Irma will leave South Florida late Sunday night into Monday morning.

Image courtesy National Weather Service