A hurricane that formed last week east of Hurricane Matthew has this afternoon been upgraded to a Category 4 tropical storm and is heading directly towards Bermuda.

It’s not only aiming for Bermuda – the entire eye is twice the size of the island and current tracking places the centre of the storm directly over Bermuda tomorrow.

The island nation is a British Overseas Territory and home to almost 65,000 people.

Here’s the latest from Wunderground as of the 4pm hour NZT Thursday:

The red symbol indicates Nicole is forecast to be a Category 3 Hurricane when it reaches Bermuda – the island nation is so small you can’t really see it on the map, but it’s behind the “A” in the ‘8AM Thu’ just north of the red symbol.

What all the reliable models are saying – plotting a future path for the storm over the coming week.

Again this is a bit tricky to see but everything inside the red circle indicates hurricane force winds. The + symbol in the middle is the very centre of the eye. The small black mark to the north east of the yellow circle is the entire island nation of Bermuda.

– WeatherWatch.co.nz with maps by Wunderground