New York, NY – Hurricane Joaquin could hit the New York metropolitan area as a tropical storm on Tuesday, potentially following the destructive course of Hurricane Sandy in 2012, weather forecasters said on Thursday.
Joaquin is a powerful Category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 miles per hour (195 kilometers per hour) located in the Atlantic Ocean near the Bahamas, according to the latest report by the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC).
The storm is expected to strengthen into a Category 4 storm with winds reaching 140 mph Friday as it turns north toward the U.S. East Coast. Joaquin is expected to weaken over the next few days before making landfall possibly as a tropical storm with maximum winds of 70 mph on Tuesday, according to the latest NHC forecast.
It could hit the U.S. coast anywhere between North Carolina and Massachusetts, but the center of the NHC’s latest storm track shows it hitting the New York metro area. That region is home to the energy infrastructure in the New York Harbor that was severely damaged by flooding from Hurricane Sandy three years ago.
