Photo: NOAA
Hurricane Fiona strengthened into a Category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 130mph, as it moved away from the Turks and Caicos Islands toward Bermuda on Wednesday morning, per the National Hurricane Center.
The big picture: The storm, which has been linked to at least two deaths in Puerto Rico and another in the Dominican Republic, on Tuesday morning became the first major hurricane of the 2022 Atlantic hurricane season.
- It knocked out power to hundreds of thousands in the Dominican Republic and the entire island of Puerto Rico earlier this week. Nearly 1.7 million residents were still without power on Tuesday night, according to poweroutage.us.
What to expect: Fiona was forecast to continue tracking north on Wednesday before turning toward the north-northeast with "an increase in forward speed" expected by Thursday, according to a National Hurricane Center advisory issued at 2am Wednesday.
- "On the forecast track, the center of Fiona will continue to move away from the Turks and Caicos today, and approach Bermuda late on Thursday," the NHC said.
Go deeper: Puerto Rico requests FEMA assistance