Maria is now spreading its damaging winds, flooding rain and storm-surge impacts into the Turks and Caicos and southeastern Bahamas.
Rain and runoff are still contributing to a flood threat in Puerto Rico.
Maria is likely to bring high surf and rip currents to the U.S. East Coast into next week.
Hurricane Maria is currently located about 30 miles north-northeast of Grand Turk Island and is moving northwest at about 7 mph.
Maria continues to pound the Dominican Republic with heavy rain and strong winds. Wind gusts over 60 mph have been clocked along the northeast Dominican Republic coast, including in the resort city of Punta Cana.
Rainbands continue to soak parts of Puerto Rico even as the center of the hurricane moves away. The National Weather Service says that major flooding was ongoing in Puerto Rico on the Rio Grande de Loiza, Rio Grande de Manati and La Plata basins.
At least one rain gauge near Caguas, Puerto Rico, has reported more than 30 inches of rain from Maria.
Project path:
Maria is expected to slowly weaken over the next 48 hours and then will begin to weaken faster as it reached colder waters.
There is one guaranteed impact that the U.S. East Coast will see no matter what path Maria takes through next week: high surf and dangerous rip currents. The Southeast coast will see the building surf and rip currents starting later Friday. Those heading to the beaches should avoid entering the waters, and boaters should be aware of rough surf conditions.
The latest forecast path from the National Hurricane Center (NHC) for Maria shows the center of the hurricane should remain off the Southeast coast during the next five days. That said, Maria still needs to be monitored closely for any possible forecast track changes that could result in additional impacts on the U.S. East Coast next week due to the complicated steering environment for the hurricane.
This complicated upper-level weather pattern includes a weakening Jose, a building upper-level high-pressure system, then an arriving southward plunge of the jet stream into the East.
The forecast for a more north than northwest motion this weekend is due to a weakness in the steering flow over the western Atlantic that a stalled Jose has a hand in creating.
Jose's low-pressure center will continue to weaken into early next week, which will allow an area of high pressure to rebuild to the north and east of Maria. At the same time, a southward dip in the jet stream over the Lower 48 will slowly approach from the west.
Maria will likely take the alleyway in between those two large-scale weather systems. Where that so-called alleyway sets up will determine how close the center of Maria will be in relation to the East Coast as it accelerates north and then northeast next week.
At the moment, the latest forecast guidance suggests the center of Maria will stay off the East Coast of the U.S., but it's too early to be 100 percent certain.
There is also the chance that the area of high pressure over southeastern Canada may nudge Maria slightly to the northwest, which could allow minor impacts to be experienced along the Outer Banks of North Carolina midweek.
https://weather.com/storms/hurricane/news/hurricane-maria-puerto-rico-hispaniola-bahamas-forecast
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