Portugal's Azores brace for impact of category 4 hurricane Lorenzo

As hurricane Lorenzo moves closer, Portugal's Azores archipelago is bracing for strong winds, heavy rain and towering waves and the country's meteorology agency IPMA said there was more than an 80% chance of the storm hitting the mid-Atlantic islands. In a statement published on Sunday, IPMA said the eye of category 4 hurricane Lorenzo would pass "very close" to the archipelago on Wednesday, with gales of up to 125 miles per hour (mph) expected to batter some areas. The storm briefly strengthened to a category 5 hurricane on Saturday evening, becoming the strongest hurricane on record this far north and east in the Atlantic, but has since been downgraded.