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 News from Around the Americas | September 2007 
Hurricane Felix Upgraded to Category 2 Storm
 Reuters
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Atlanta - Hurricane Felix, the second hurricane of the Atlantic hurricane season, was upgraded early on Sunday to a category 2 storm with maximum sustained winds of 100 mph, the US National Hurricane Center said.
A tropical storm warning and a hurricane watch remained in effect for the islands of Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao and a tropical storm watch remained in effect for Jamaica.
As of 2 a.m. EST, the center of the storm, a category 2 on the Saffir-Simpson scale, was about 145 miles east of Aruba. Felix was moving to the west at about 18 mph.
Felix was expected to continue gaining strength as it moves through the Caribbean, the Hurricane Center said.
The first hurricane of the season, Dean, turned into a monster Category 5 storm and killed at least 27 people as it roared across the Caribbean and Mexico late last month.
"We are forecasting it (Felix) to be a Category 3 hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean Sea by the middle of the week," said forecaster Eric Blake of the hurricane center in Miami.
Aruba, Bonaire and Curacao were alerted to expect storm conditions within 24 hours. The islands can expect up to 4 inches of rain.
There were no indications Felix would reach the Gulf of Mexico, home to a third of U.S. domestic crude oil and 15 percent of natural gas production. But long-range forecasts are unreliable, the center said.
Energy markets have watched tropical storms and hurricanes closely since the devastating Atlantic hurricane seasons of 2004 and 2005, when storms like Ivan, Katrina and Rita disrupted supplies.
Computer models predicted the sixth named storm of the year in the Atlantic basin would head into the Caribbean in the general direction of Mexico and Central America.
The 2007 hurricane season, expected to be a busy one, is approaching its peak. Most storms hit from August 20 to mid-October, with September 10 marking the peak of the season.
In late August, Dean hammered Martinique, St. Lucia and other islands in the Lesser Antilles chain. It blasted Jamaica and then struck Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula before dissipating over the Mexican mainland. |
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