Watch a live tracker of Hurricane Delta as it approaches the Gulf Coast of the United States. Forecasters said Delta — the 25th named storm of an unprecedented Atlantic hurricane season — would likely crash ashore Friday evening somewhere on southwest Louisiana’s coast. The question was whether it would remain at devastating Category 3 strength, with top winds of 120 mph (195 kph) early Friday, or drop just before landfall to a still extremely dangerous Category 2 storm. Either way, Delta is such a large hurricane that the storm surge risk remains high even if it becomes less intense just before striking land, the National Hurricane Center said. Live Hurricane Delta tracking below:

Watch live satellite tracking and forecasting of Hurricane Laura. Laura pounded the Gulf Coast for hours with ferocious wind, torrential rains and rising seawater as it roared ashore over southwestern Louisiana near the Texas border early Thursday, threatening the lives of people who didn’t evacuate. Hours after landfall, Laura was still a Category 2 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph (175 kph). Louisiana took the brunt of the damage when the Category 4 system barreled over Lake Charles, an industrial and casino city of 80,000 people. The hurricane’s top wind speed of 150 mph (241 kph) put it among the most powerful systems on record in the U.S.Read more here.

Watch live satellite tracking and forecasting of Hurricane Laura. Laura rapidly gained strength Wednesday, raising fears that it could come ashore as a Category 4 hurricane with a 20-foot storm surge that forecasters said would be “unsurvivable” and capable of sinking entire communities. Satellite images show that Laura has become “a formidable hurricane” in recent hours, threatening to smash homes and sink entire communities. A Category 4 hurricane will do catastrophic damage: “Power outages will last weeks to possibly months. Most of the area will be uninhabitable for weeks or months,” the weather service says.