Hurricane Felix gained intensity as it tore across the warm waters of the Caribbean early Sunday, the Florida-based National Hurricane Center said. In the pre-dawn hours the Hurricane Center upgraded Felix to a Category Two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson scale on a scale of five, with winds of 160 kilometres per hour and even higher gusts.
At 0900 GMT the storm's center was located about 135 kilometres east-northeast of the island of Aruba, travelling towards the west at about 30 kilometers (18 miles) per hour, the Hurricane Center said in its latest advisory. "On this track the center of Felix will pass very near the north of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao during the next few hours, and into the open waters of the Central Caribbean sea later (Sunday)," the advisory read.
"Some strengthening is forecast ... and Felix could become a major hurricane in the next 24 hours," the advisory added. The islands are popular tourist destinations in the Netherlands Antilles. Local authorities issued a hurricane watch for the three islands. A tropical storm watch was also issued for Jamaica, signalling that tropical storm conditions were possible within about 36 hours, the Hurricane Center said.
The storm could dump two to four inches (five to 10 centimeters) of rain over islands off the Venezuela coast and the Netherlands Antilles, forecasters said. On its current path Felix is expected to graze the coastlines of Nicaragua and Honduras late Tuesday and make landfall in Belize on Wednesday. Felix is the second hurricane of the three-month-old Atlantic season.
Last week Hurricane Dean swept through the southern Caribbean with severe winds and rains, leaving a wide swathe of damage and a death toll of 30 from Martinique to Mexico.
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