* 17:09 20 August 2007
* NewScientist.com news service
* New Scientist Environment and Reuters
Hurricane Dean could become a Category Five hurricane later today before hitting Mexico, the US National Hurricane Centre said on Monday. The hurricane is expected to hit Mexico's Yucatan peninsula after having battered Jamaica's southern coast during a Caribbean rampage that has killed at least nine people.
Dean is currently an "extremely dangerous" Category Four hurricane, the second highest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. It is expected to strike the Yucatan Peninsula and Belize before 0800 EDT on Tuesday 21 August (see map, right).
According to the hurricane centre, Dean is travelling at 33 kilometres per hour and carrying sustained winds of 240 km/h. The storm has passed more than 160 km to the south of the Cayman Islands – a British territory in the western Caribbean.
"Dean is far enough south that [the Cayman Islands] will not get the core of the hurricane, but they will get tropical-storm-force winds," says Jamie Rhome, a forecaster at the hurricane centre.
Jamaican authorities said 300,000 people were displaced by the storm, and at least one man was missing. Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has declared a month-long state of emergency.
US spared
The latest computer tracking models forecast the hurricane will spare the US Gulf Coast. Instead, it is predicted to cross the Yucatan to the Bay of Campeche, and then hit central Mexico. As a result, hurricane warnings are in effect for the coast of Belize and the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, all the way to the popular tourist destination of Cancún.
Dean is the first hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic season, which officially began on 1 June and ends 30 November. On 9 August, the US Climate Prediction Center reiterated its May forecast that 2007 will be an above-normal season, with seven to nine hurricanes of which three to five could become major hurricanes – Category Three or above (see Hurricane forecasters predict stormy season ahead).
"We are already observing wind patterns similar to those created by La Niña across the tropical Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea that encourage tropical cyclone development. The conditions are ripe for an above-normal season," says Gerry Bell, forecaster at the Climate Prediction Center.
* NewScientist.com news service
* New Scientist Environment and Reuters
Hurricane Dean could become a Category Five hurricane later today before hitting Mexico, the US National Hurricane Centre said on Monday. The hurricane is expected to hit Mexico's Yucatan peninsula after having battered Jamaica's southern coast during a Caribbean rampage that has killed at least nine people.
Dean is currently an "extremely dangerous" Category Four hurricane, the second highest on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale. It is expected to strike the Yucatan Peninsula and Belize before 0800 EDT on Tuesday 21 August (see map, right).
According to the hurricane centre, Dean is travelling at 33 kilometres per hour and carrying sustained winds of 240 km/h. The storm has passed more than 160 km to the south of the Cayman Islands – a British territory in the western Caribbean.
"Dean is far enough south that [the Cayman Islands] will not get the core of the hurricane, but they will get tropical-storm-force winds," says Jamie Rhome, a forecaster at the hurricane centre.
Jamaican authorities said 300,000 people were displaced by the storm, and at least one man was missing. Jamaican Prime Minister Portia Simpson Miller has declared a month-long state of emergency.
US spared
The latest computer tracking models forecast the hurricane will spare the US Gulf Coast. Instead, it is predicted to cross the Yucatan to the Bay of Campeche, and then hit central Mexico. As a result, hurricane warnings are in effect for the coast of Belize and the east coast of the Yucatan Peninsula, all the way to the popular tourist destination of Cancún.
Dean is the first hurricane of the 2007 Atlantic season, which officially began on 1 June and ends 30 November. On 9 August, the US Climate Prediction Center reiterated its May forecast that 2007 will be an above-normal season, with seven to nine hurricanes of which three to five could become major hurricanes – Category Three or above (see Hurricane forecasters predict stormy season ahead).
"We are already observing wind patterns similar to those created by La Niña across the tropical Pacific Ocean and Caribbean Sea that encourage tropical cyclone development. The conditions are ripe for an above-normal season," says Gerry Bell, forecaster at the Climate Prediction Center.
Powered by ScribeFire.
Entradas
No hay comentarios:
Publicar un comentario