Ernesto Could Turn Into Hurricane

The fifth tropical storm of the Atlantic season, Ernesto, could become a hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico this week, U.S. forecasters said.

The National Hurricane Center said forecasting Ernesto’s future strength was riddled with uncertainty. But traveling through very warm waters as it approached the Gulf could lead to significant strengthening.

“Ernesto could become a potentially dangerous hurricane as it moves across the northeastern Caribbean Sea and the Gulf of Mexico,” forecaster Jack Beven said Saturday in a bulletin from the hurricane center.

Jamaica, the Cayman Islands and Cuba issued hurricane watches as Ernesto bore down, meaning hurricane conditions could be expected within 36 hours. The hurricane center said Ernesto could be near hurricane strength, with winds near 74 mph, as it passed Jamaica and Haiti today.

Ernesto would be the first hurricane of the six-month hurricane season that began June 1. The storm’s forecast track could take it by Thursday to the middle of the Gulf as a Category 3 storm.

Hurricane Katrina was a Category 3 storm when it came ashore in southeast Louisiana last Aug. 29. It killed 1,500 people on the U.S. Gulf Coast.

“Our entire coast is on alert,” Gov. Kathleen Babineaux Blanco told a news conference. She praised the Army Corps of Engineers for their work to fix New Orleans’ levees, breached in the storm, but acknowledged they remained untested by nature.

Ernesto’s eventual target zone ranged from the Florida Panhandle through New Orleans and down to Mexico.