Hurricane Gustav strengthens into 'major' storm off Cuba

(GETTY IMAGES)

Hurricane Gustav strengthened into a major Category 3 storm today as it moved over warm Caribbean waters toward western Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

Just before 6 a.m. (10.00 GMT), the storm had maximum sustained winds near 115 mph (185 kph), making it a Category 3 storm on the five-stage Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity.

Any storm packing winds of at least 111 mph (178 kph) is ranked "major" by the Miami-based hurricane center.

The storm, which killed up to 77 people in the Caribbean, was plowing toward superheated waters south of Cuba where it could absorb enough energy to strengthen into a major hurricane before ripping through the heavy concentration of U.S. oil and natural gas platforms off Louisiana.

While long-range storm forecasts are prone to errors, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said late on Friday that Gustav could be a "major" Category four storm on the five-stage Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity within 48 hours.

The storm's most likely track has it going ashore west of New Orleans on Tuesday morning.

U.S. emergency officials, mindful of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina three years ago, warned that Gustav was expected to be accompanied by a 15- to 30-foot (5-to-9 metre) storm surge along the Gulf Coast, and said four states in its potential path were expected to begin large-scale evacuations today.

"This storm has the potential for being a very dangerous storm," said Bill Irwin, a program director with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Oil prices slipped yesterday after a week of volatile trading due to Gustav's threat to the 4,000 Gulf platforms that produce a quarter of U.S. oil and 15 percent of its natural gas (CLc1)(OILOIL)(LCOc1)(CLV8).

Energy companies evacuated offshore workers and shut production in preparation for the most serious Gulf storm since the devastating 2005 Atlantic hurricane season.

Katrina was a monstrous Category 5 hurricane in the Gulf of Mexico before coming ashore near New Orleans as a Category 3 on 29 August, 2005, breaching protective levees and flooding the city famed as the birthplace of jazz.

The devastation exposed deep poverty, racial tensions and federal incompetence as thousands of people were left stranded without aid. About 1,500 people were killed on the U.S. Gulf Coast and $80 billion in damages made Katrina the costliest U.S. natural disaster.