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WILLEMSTAD - Hurricane Felix became an extremely dangerous Category Five storm yesterday as it swept through the southern Caribbean on a path toward Central America and Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, US forecasters said.
On a similar - though more southerly - track to last month's powerful Hurricane Dean, which killed 27 people, Felix's top sustained winds had increased to 270 km/h, the US National Hurricane Centre in Miami said.
That made the second hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic storm season a Category Five on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale.
It was located about 625km southeast of the Jamaican capital, Kingston.
Jamaica is preparing today for one of the closest general elections in its history, as Felix threatens to blast voters with heavy winds and rains.
Forecasters said Felix was strengthening at one of the fastest rates ever seen, as measured by the drop in its minimum internal pressure.
It was passing over a warm eddy of water in the central Caribbean, finding in it the fuel needed to rev up to a Category Five. Dean became a Category Five storm in mid-August before slamming into the Yucatan Peninsula, south of the tourist resort of Cancun.
Gulf of Mexico oil and natural gas producers were monitoring Felix but had not evacuated offshore workers so far because the forecast track did not appear to threaten them.
- Reuters
