Hurricane Jose is heading toward the U.S. — should we be worried?

Hurricane Irma left at least 68 people dead, wreaked billions of dollars in damages and drove millions more Floridians and Georgians out of their homes and into shelters.

That storm is largely over now — the last few remnants of Irma are expected to disappear somewhere north of Tennessee today. Florida and Georgia are in rebuilding mode, with utility companies working through the night to restore power and government officials working to secure aid packages to help in the recovery.

But those efforts will be performed under at least a tiny cloud of worry, as Hurricane Jose swirls and churns in the Atlantic about 500 miles east of the Bahamas.

Hurricane Jose strengthened to a powerful Category 4 hurricane about week ago but has since dropped to a Category 1, with sustained winds of about 75 mph. It could weaken further or it could strengthen again as conditions develop, though the National Hurricane Center doesn’t predict any change in intensity for the time being.

The storm took an odd looping path over the Atlantic but is now expected to move west, sliding right between Bermuda and the Caribbean islands without making landfall.

After that, the path becomes uncertain. By early Saturday morning, the National Hurricane Center expects Jose to be a few hundred miles north of the Bahamas and moving toward the North Carolina coast. Even then, however, long-term models predict that the hurricane will shear to the right and miss land entirely.

If so, it would be welcome relief to a country already exhausted by two Category 4 landfalls in as many weeks.

AccuWeather meteorologists Renee Duff and Alex Sosnowski wrote that although landfall in the U.S. remains unlikely at this time, but that Jose “could get close enough to throw clouds, rain and gusty winds as far west as the immediate mid-Atlantic and southern New England coasts.”

Beachgoers will probably begin feeling the effects in the coming days, the National Hurricane Center said.

“Jose is producing a large swell field that will affect much of the southwestern Atlantic basin during the next few days, causing rough surf and rip current conditions.”

Hurricane season tends to peak right around Sept. 10, but that doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods yet. The storms continue to form at least until late October.

This story was originally published September 14, 2017 at 9:04 AM with the headline "Hurricane Jose is heading toward the U.S. — should we be worried?."