ORLANDO, Fla. – Hurricane Irma is packing a power punch with wind speeds upwards of 155 mph, and Central Florida is in the hurricane's direct path.
According to the National Hurricane Center, Irma is 475 miles southeast of Miami as of 7:45 a.m. Friday and has left ten people dead in St. Martin, U.S. Virgin Islands, Anguilla and Barbuda.
So what is the size of Hurricane Irma compared to Hurricane Andrew? Irma is massive compared to Andrew, which was no small feat when it made landfall at 165 mph in 1992.
A GIF created by Joel Nihlean shows combined satellite images of both storms to show how massive size Irma is.
I combined the images of Hurricane Andrew (1992) & Hurricane Irma (today) at scale in a gif. Irma is a damn leviathan. pic.twitter.com/4HEw1NNxxd
— J🎃EL (@JoelNihlean) September 7, 2017
According to the London based Science Magazine, Irma could cover the entire Untied Kingdom and part of Ireland.
However, Irma is not the fiercest hurricane to hit Florida. In 1992, Hurricane Andrew, which hit the United States as a Category 5 storm, caused more than $26.5 billion worth of damage to the Bahamas, Florida and Louisiana. With inflation, the total damage costs would be $50 billion, according to the National Weather Service. Hurricane Andrew left 65 people dead, according to Weather.com.
Before Hurricane Andrew, Hurricane Camille hit the U.S. in 1969 as a Category 5 storm.