Dorian - comparison of hurricane wind fields

As of the 15:00 UTC NHC advisory, Dorian is 30 miles northeast of Freeport, Bahamas with maximum sustained winds of 155 mph (strong Category 4)...

• Current status
  • Dorian rapidly intensified into a Category 5 major hurricane prior to making landfall at Elbow Cay on the Abaco Islands in the northern Bahamas. The system then made a second landfall in Marsh Harbour, followed by a third landfall over the eastern end of Grand Bahama Island
  • Dorian achieved a peak intensity of 185 mph (295 km/hr), making it the strongest hurricane to impact the northern Bahamas on record and the tied second strongest hurricane in the Atlantic basin in history
  • Dorian is also tied for the strongest Atlantic hurricane landfall on record with the 1935 Labor Day Hurricane

• Impacts in the Bahamas
  • Dorian is currently bringing destructive hurricane-force winds and catastrophic storm surge conditions to the Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama Island, with wind gusts of up to 220 mph (354 km/h) and a storm surge in excess of 20 ft (6 m)
  • The Abaco Islands and Grand Bahama island will continue to experience these catastrophic conditions for most of today. These conditions are expected to cause extreme destruction across the region
  • Early reports indicate that the islands in the northern Bahamas are devastated
    • The Red Cross fears that around 13,000 homes have been damaged or destroyed
  • There is limited official damage information; most of the impact information to date is from what has been shared on social media by residents while they were situated in the eye of Dorian
  • The National Hurricane Center has warned that power outages across the Bahamas may last for week to possibly months and that most of the area is likely to be uninhabitable for weeks or possibly months

• Historical events
  • No major hurricane (Cat 3+) has ever crossed the northern Bahamas with a path similar to Dorian’s east-west track
    • Most severe historical storms come up from the south, so they hit more islands and usually impact New Providence (and the city of Nassau), which were spared the worst of Dorian
    • Only one hurricane has ever impacted the Bahamas as a Category 5 (Andrew, 1992), although it did not impact the same islands as Dorian
    • Only four Category 3-4 storms have passed near Grand Bahama/Abaco; their losses are below, but keep in mind that none of these were as intense or impactful as Dorian. Losses are for Grand Bahama and Abaco islands only, wind and storm surge only. A reminder that these are past storms analyzed over present-day exposure