Hurricane Joaquin Could Be Really Bad News for the Mid-Atlantic Region of the US

Hurricane Joaquin, the storm that officially became a hurricane this morning, is gathering strength in the warm waters east of the Bahamas, and is currently moving slowly to the southwest as its final path remains unknown.

Dennis Feltgen, a public affairs officer and meteorologist with the National Hurricane Center, said that the storm's current environment is enabling it to get stronger. Joaquin's maximum sustained winds are currently 85 miles per hour.

"We are forecasting it to become a major hurricane here in about 48 to 72 hours," Feltgen said.

The storm will turn toward the north, but it's unclear where it will go from there. A low pressure system, Feltgen said, will keep it from hitting Florida.

"The question is: Is this trough of low pressure going to be strong enough where it draws Joaquin in, toward the Unites States," Feltgen said, "or as some other models suggest, does it push it out to sea?"

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A NOAA G-IV jet was scheduled to drop about 36 instruments known as dropsondes this afternoon in the area around the hurricane and in its likely path, and will hopefully provide the models with more data, Feltgen said. Those instruments, which are biodegradable, gather information like wind speed as they fall, send it back, and then hit the ocean.

"We're hoping that it'll bring the different models into a better consensus, because right now they're all over the place," he added.

At this point, he said that people on the east coast of the United States should monitor the latest advisories as well as ensure that their hurricane supplies — food, water, medication, to last three days — are up-to-date.

Brian McNoldy, a senior research associate at the University of Miami's Rosenstiel School of Marine and Atmospheric Science, said that by day's end the hurricane could become a category two storm and is "rapidly intensifying."

The storm's growth is helped by deep, warm water beneath the hurricane, he said.

"I would say with at least half of [the prediction models], probably more towards three-quarters right now, are hinting at something like a mid-Atlantic landfall," McNoldy told VICE News. But other models show Joaquin staying offshore to different degrees.

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Phil Klotzbach, a research scientist at Colorado State University's Department of Atmospheric Science, said that a model called the Global Forecast System suggests a westward turn toward Wilmington, North Carolina, but another, a model from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, shows Joaquin going east, away from the United States.

This is the third hurricane of the season in the Atlantic; Joaquin follows Fred and Danny.

"This season has been extraordinarily quiet," Klotzbach told VICE News. The quiet Atlantic season this year is largely attributable to El Nino, he said, and is the third consecutive Atlantic hurricane season that has been "below normal" in terms of hurricane activity.

Follow Rob Verger on Twitter: @robverger