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With 200-mph sustained winds and even more powerful gusts, Hurricane Patricia was the strongest hurricane ever recorded by the U.S. National Hurricane Center as it bore down Friday on Mexico's Pacific coast. The Miami-based meteorological center, in its 8 a.m. advisory, warned of a "potentially catastrophic landfall in southwestern Mexico" later Friday. While its strength could fluctuate, "Patricia is expected to remain an extremely dangerous Category 5 hurricane through landfall." Patricia has potential to cause massive death and destruction to a large swath of the Mexican Pacific coast, including the tourist hot spots of Puerto Vallarta and Acapulco. Citing observations...

History is being made tonight in the Northeast Pacific as Hurricane Patricia churns about 200 miles off the coast of Mexico, south-southwest of Manzanillo. With its 11 pm EDT Thursday advisory, the National Hurricane Center upgraded Patricia to Category 5, with top sustained winds of 160 mph and a central pressure of 924 millibars. Hurricane warnings are now in effect for the coast from San Blas to Punta San Telmo, including Puerto Vallarta and Manzanillo, with a hurricane watch and tropical storm warning eastward to Lazaro Cardenas. Update: Late Thursday night, an Air Force Hurricane Hunter flight captured some of...

A search and salvage team from the U.S. Navy is expected to kick off its search for the American cargo ship El Faro this week which is believed to have sunk in some 15,000 feet of water near the Bahamas during Hurricane Joaquin.

The owners of a cargo ship that disappeared Thursday with 33 people on board as Hurricane Joaquin raged said the ship's captain had planned to skirt the storm, but was prevented from doing so by a mechanical failure that left the boat adrift in the path of the power storm. Phil Greene, president and CEO of ship owner Tote Services Inc., told the Associated Press the captain of the El Faro, whose name has not been released, had conferred with her sister ship — which was returning to Jacksonville, Fla. along a similar route — and determined the weather was...

IN THE aftermath of Hurricane Joaquin, residents of Crooked Island have been describing having to rip through sheetrock with their children in their hands, fighting to reach the ceiling of their home to escape chest high floods.

Coast Guard Capt. Mark Fedor responds to questions during a press conference for search-and-rescue operations for a missing container ship, El Faro, at Coast Guard Air Station Miami, Oct. 5, 2015. Thirty-three people were aboard the El Faro before it went missing in the Caribbean Sea. U.S. Coast Guard photo by Petty Officer 2nd Class Mark Barney.

<p>USCG confirms SS El faro has sunk. 1 body and one damaged life boat found among large debris field. details forthcoming.</p>

A cargo ship with 33 crewmen on board that has been missing since Thursday is believed to have sunk, according to authorities involved in the search for the vessel.

An 800 ft. cargo vessel sailing from Jacksonville to San Juan in the vicinity of a major hurricane with 33 crew on board loses power, starts listing, sends a distress signal and goes missing now for four days. Drudge has a link to the story just as a side of other hurricane stories. The story goes largely ignored by the mainstream media. Even Free Republic has taken it down from Breaking and Front Page news. That's 33 souls, 28 of which are Americans, possibly lost at sea or struggling to survive. A major U.S. Coast Guard search and rescue effort...

NASSAU, Bahamas (AP) -- The U.S. Coast Guard has located a life ring from a cargo ship that lost power and communications during Hurricane Joaquin and is now the subject of an intense search in the southeastern Bahamas. Coast Guard Chief Petty Officer Ryan Doss says the life ring was 120 miles northeast of Crooked Island. That's about 70 miles northeast of the last known position of the El Faro before it lost contact with authorities with 33 people on board. Doss says the crew of a C-130 airplane spotted the life ring Saturday and a helicopter crew confirmed it...

Anxious family members of 28 Americans who went missing during Hurricane Joaquin awaited news of their loved ones' fates Saturday, as the Coast Guard combed hundreds of miles looking for their stricken cargo ship. Officials said there was still no sign of the El Faro, which was last heard from around 7:20 a.m. ET Thursday when a distress call indicated it had lost power and was taking on water.

For days, the models that guide the National Hurricane Center’s forecasts had been split over the future of Hurricane Joaquin. Different models were sending the storm to Cape Hatteras in North Carolina or to Maine or to Bermuda. The official forecast — which held that the storm would make landfall in the mid-Atlantic — was “low” confidence, as the center put it. It was an attempt to compromise between models that fundamentally disagreed. Friday, the official forecast now takes Joaquin out to sea. A direct hit on the East Coast can’t yet be ruled out, but the top models doubt...

Coast Guard search and rescue crews are searching for a container ship with 33 crew members that sailed out of Jacksonville and was reported to be caught in Hurricane Joaquin, near Crooked Island, Bahamas. The El Faro, a 735-foot ro-ro cargo ship, sailed out of Jacksonville Tuesday en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico. Tim Nolan, president of TOTE Maritime Puerto Rico, said that when the ship sailed, the crew was monitoring what was then Tropical Storm Joaquin. He said TOTE lost all communication with the El Faro as of 7:20 a.m. Thursday. "There are a number of possible reasons...

MIAMI - Coast Guard search and rescue crews are searching for a container ship with 33 crew members that sailed out of Jacksonville and was reported to be caught in Hurricane Joaquin, near Crooked Island, Bahamas. The El Faro, a 735-foot ro-ro cargo ship, was en route to San Juan, Puerto Rico, from Jacksonville. About 7:30 a.m. Thursday, watchstanders at the Coast Guard Atlantic Area command center in Portsmouth, Virginia, received an Inmarsat satellite notification stating the El Faro was beset by Hurricane Joaquin, had lost propulsion and had a 15-degree list. The crew reported the ship had previously taken...

GREENSBORO, N.C. -- Governor Pat McCrory declared a state of emergency for all 100 counties ahead of the arrival of Hurricane Joaquin -- a category 4 storm. “We’re hoping for the best, but hope is not preparation nor is it a plan,” Governor McCrory said. “I’ve ordered all state agencies to begin preparation for the severe weather, particularly flooding, that is going hit just about every corner of the state during the next few days." McCrory asked that everyone stay away from flooded areas because most storm-related deaths are due to drowning. “Regardless of the impacts of Hurricane Joaquin, North...

Just thought it interesting, and potentially very important for those living on the east coast, to point out how different the predicted path for this major hurricane is between these two major weather sources (Weather Channel and AccuWeather), at least as of the moment: Fri, Oct 02, 2015 @ 5:30AM EDT. AccuWeather appears to have it *several hundred miles* more west than does The Weather Channel. Perhaps the predictions are based on different computer models. The first map below is from AccuWeather. The second, The Weather Channel.

The center of Hurricane Joaquin could be churning up the Chesapeake Bay come Monday morning, bringing flooding rains and storm surge with it.The storm — which was upgraded from a tropical storm to a hurricane Wednesday morning — is still about 200 miles east of the Bahamas, but is expected to strengthen and shift northward soon, according to the National Hurricane Center.Joaquin is expected to make a right turn and speed up the Eastern Seaboard starting Friday, before crossing the Outer Banks of North Carolina on Sunday and heading up the Chesapeake on Monday. While forecasts are tenuous several days...

Just upgraded at 8am advisory.

Just a heads-up to anyone in the NC to DE area, a Cat4 is potentially headed your way. Keep an eye on TS Joaquin