Hurricane Dorian has gained fearsome new muscle as an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm, bearing down on the northwestern Bahamas early Saturday en route to the US Southeast coast.
Millions of people in Florida, along with the state's Walt Disney World and President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago resort, are in the potential crosshairs of the hurricane.
Forecasters say Dorian, which had top sustained winds of 145 mph (230 kph) Saturday morning, will hover along Florida's east coast Tuesday and Wednesday.
But the National Hurricane Center in Miami cautioned that its meteorologists remain uncertain whether Dorian would make a devastating direct strike on the state's east coast or inflict a glancing blow.
Some of the more reliable computer models predicted a late turn northward that would have Dorian skirt the Florida coast.
"There is hope," Weather Underground meteorology director Jeff Masters said.
More From This Section
Forecasters now expect ever-strengthening Dorian to dance up the Southeast coastline, but stay just off shore of Florida.
Most of the best hurricane computer models kept recurving Dorian's track and its Category 4 extremely dangerous winds.
On Saturday morning, the National Hurricane Center changed its forecast.
The new forecast has the storm skirting the coast along Georgia with the possibility of landfall still a threat on Wednesday and continuing up to South Carolina early Thursday.
The center also stressed that doesn't mean Dorian packing 145 mph winds won't hit Florida, with large portions of the state in its cone of uncertainty forecast.
Still, after days of a forecast that put the Sunshine State and President Donald Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in the center of expected landfalls, the changes are significant.
The National Hurricane Center's advisory released at 8 am Saturday EDT warned the possibility of "strong winds and life-threatening storm surge" is increasing along Georgia and South Carolina's coasts.
The faint hope of dodging Dorian's fury came Friday, even as the storm ratcheted up from a menacing Category 3 hurricane to an even more dangerous Category 4.
That raised fears Dorian could become the most powerful hurricane to hit Florida's east coast in nearly 30 years.
National Hurricane Center projections showed Dorian hitting roughly near Fort Pierce, some 70 miles (113 kilometers) north of Mar-a-Lago, then running along the coastline as it moved north.
But forecasters cautioned that the storm's track remains still highly uncertain and even a small deviation could put Dorian offshore or well inland.
Trump has declared a state of emergency in Florida and authorized the Federal Emergency Management Agency to coordinate disaster-relief efforts.
He told reporters that "Mar-a-Lago can handle itself" and that he is more worried about Florida.
"This is big and is growing, and it still has some time to get worse," Julio Vasquez said at a Miami fast-food joint next to a gas station that had run out of fuel.
"No one knows what can really happen. This is serious."