Meteorologists watched Hurricane Irma closely for days as it formed over the Atlantic Ocean and made its way toward the Caribbean.
It took 10 days for the slow-moving storm to make landfall, at times moving west at a pace of only 7 or 8 mph. New imagery from NASA's advanced GOES-16 satellite shows the hurricane's path from off the coast of Africa to the United States in just 30 seconds.
Hurricane Irma set all sorts of records for brute strength before it swamped the Florida Keys. Irma's assault — so soon after Harvey's deluge of Houston — marked the first time the U.S. was hit by two Category 4 storms in the same year.
Earlier, it was the most powerful recorded storm in the open Atlantic as a Category 5 hurricane with winds reaching 185 mph.
Irma made landfall in Florida as a Category 4 storm, but had fallen to a Category 2 with 110 mph winds by late Sunday afternoon and was continuing to weaken as it marched up the state's Gulf Coast. Its center was on track to reach the Tampa Bay area by late Sunday or early Monday.
You can see live radar of the hurricane's movement here.
(Source: SF Gate)
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