Hurricane Irma is an extremely powerful tropical cyclone affecting the Leeward Islands and Puerto Rico, and threatening Cuba and the Southeastern United States. It is the strongest hurricane ever recorded in the Atlantic basin outside the Caribbean and Gulf of Mexico, and is tied with the 1935 Labor Day hurricane as the strongest landfalling cyclone on record in the Atlantic basin as well as the strongest Atlantic hurricane since Wilma of 2005 in terms of maximum sustained winds, the most intense in terms of pressure since Dean in 2007, and the first of such intensity to make landfall anywhere in the Atlantic since Felix in 2007. Irma is also the first Category 5 hurricane on record to affect the northern Leeward Islands. A typical Cape Verde hurricane, Irma developed on August 30 near the Cape Verde Islands from a tropical wave that had moved off the west African coast two days prior. It is the ninth named storm, fourth hurricane, and second major hurricane of the 2017 Atlantic hurricane season. - Source: Wikipedia
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