After a week of destruction in the Caribbean, it was clear that Hurricane Irma was one for the books.
Phil Klotzbach, a meteorologist for Colorado State University, has been tracking the relentless storm over the past week, taking note of all the records it has broken so far.
“It’s definitely an impressive storm,” Klotzbach told HuffPost. “It’s one of the heavy hitters in at least in the last 50 years or so.”
Klotzbach on Saturday evening predicted that Irma would go down as the second strongest storm in recorded history in terms of accumulated cyclone energy, falling short of 2004′s Hurricane Ivan, which battered the Gulf Coast and left 20 dead.
Below are the records Hurricane Irma has already broken as of Sunday morning, as recorded by Klotzbach:
Irma is the first storm in recorded history that has maintained top winds of 185 miles per hour for 37 straight hours.It’s the “longest any cyclone around the globe has mantained that intensity on record,” Klotzbach writes. “The previous record was [Typhoon] Haiyan in the [Northwest] Pacific at 24 hours.”
Irma is the strongest storm on record to exist in the Atlantic, outside of the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico. Hurricane Irma has had a maximum wind speed of 185 miles per hour in its lifetime, making this the first time for a storm like this to exist in the Atlantic. The warmer waters in the Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico make those areas more prone to cyclones.
Irma is tied with the 1932 Cuba hurricane for the longest time spent as a Category 5 hurricane.
An infamously powerful and unnamed hurricane hit Cuba in 1932, forcing 1 million people to evacuate from low-lying areas in central Cuban provinces. Irma tied with this hurricane for longest time spent in Category 5 strength.
Irma has the lowest minimum pressure in its lifetime of an Atlantic hurricane on record, outside of the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico.
To determine the strength of a storm, scientists measure the storm’s barometric pressure using millibars. The lower the pressure the storm has, the stronger the storm tends to be. Hurricane Irma had 915 millibars, making it the lowest pressure of an Atlantic hurricane outside of the western Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico in recorded history.
It’s the first time in recorded history that there were two hurricanes with winds of at least 150 miles per hour in the Atlantic at the same time.On Saturday, Hurricanes Irma and Jose swirled through the Atlantic at the same time with winds of 150 miles per hour, according to Klotzbach.
Irma beat Hurricane Ike for having the most hurricane days.
As of early Sunday, Hurricane Irma has clocked in 10.75 hurricane days, making it the most hurricane days of a tropical cyclone since 2008′s Hurricane Ike, which accrued 10 days.
Irma generated more Accumulated Cyclone Energy than the first eight named storms of the current Atlantic hurricane season combined.
Accumulated Cyclone Energy (ACE) is another way that scientists measure a hurricane season using the combined wind energy a storm produces during a set time period. According to Wunderground, ACE is “used to express the activity and destructive potential of individual tropical cyclones and entire tropical cyclone seasons.”
Irma has broken the record for the most ACE generated in a 24-hour period.
This breaks the old record set by Hurricane Allen in 1980.
Irma is the strongest hurricane the Leeward Islands have ever seen. Klotzbach noted that, at Category 5 strength, Hurricane Irma was the strongest storm on record to impact the Leeward Islands with maximum sustained winds of up to 185 miles per hour. Before Irma, the Okeechobee Hurricane (in 1928) and Hurricane David (1979) were the strongest to hit the area with winds of 160 miles per hour.
Irma was the closest a Category 5 hurricane ever came to the Turks and Caicos islands.