Hurricane Dean Bears Down on Mexico

Willie Drye
for National Geographic News

August 20, 2007

Powerful Hurricane Dean is headed for landfall early Tuesday on Mexico's Yucatán Peninsula, experts say. (See Yucatán map.)

The strengthening storm thrashed parts of Jamaica's southern coast Sunday with winds of up to 140 miles (225 kilometers) an hour (pictures: Hurricane Dean lashes Jamaica).

Daniel Brown, a hurricane specialist at the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said the storms winds could exceed 155 miles (249 kilometers) an hour later today as it continues its trek across the warm Caribbean Sea.

That wind speed would make Dean a Category 5 hurricane—the most powerful type of storm of the Saffir-Simpson scale. Category 5 storms can create storm surges of at least 18 feet (5.4 meters) and cause catastrophic damage on land.

Dean's eye—which contains the most violent winds—made its closest approach to Jamaica on Sunday evening, Brown said. The eye's wall brushed the capital city of Kingston as the storm moved westward offshore.

Nine deaths have been reported since the storm began as a tropical depression on August 13.

Westward Bound

As of 6 a.m. eastern standard time Monday, Dean's eye was about 115 miles (185 kilometers) south-southeast of the Cayman Islands in the northwestern Caribbean. The storm was moving westward at about 21 miles (33 kilometers) an hour. (Related: "2007 Hurricane Season Will Be "Very Active," Forecasters Say" [April 3, 2007].)

A hurricane warning has been issued for the Caymans, as well as for Cancún on the east coast of the Yucatán Peninsula. The warning extends southward to Belize City in the Central American country of Belize.

A hurricane warning means that hurricane-force winds of at least 74 miles (119 kilometers) an hour are expected within the next 24 hours.

On Grand Cayman Island, which took a direct hit from the Category 5 Hurricane Ivan in September 2004, residents were taking no chances with Dean.

"We have prepared for the worst and hope for the best," Fred Sambula, director of the Cayman Islands Meteorological Service, told National Geographic News.

As Hurricane Dean roared across the Caribbean late last week, forecasts predicted that the storm's powerful center might cross the Caymans and give the islands a pounding similar to Ivan. (How does a hurricane work?)

But a low-pressure system over the United States that could have drawn the storm more northward toward the Caymans and the U.S. Gulf Coast has moved away.

Angela Martins, deputy chair of the Caymans' National Hurricane Committee, said airlines serving the islands had sent in extra planes, and that about 2,500 people had evacuated as of Sunday.

"Everywhere I look, everyone is shuttering up," Martins said.

Preparations for Dean also are being made in the United States, even though forecasters think Dean will stay well to the south.

For example, NASA officials decided to cut short the mission of the space shuttle Endeavor, which has been docked at the International Space Station.

Officials made the decision because of concerns that the hurricane might make a last-minute turn northward. The New York Times reported Sunday that NASA will monitor Deans movements before deciding whether to land Endeavor on Tuesday in Florida, Texas, New Mexico, or California.

And Saturday President George W. Bush declared a state of emergency in his home state of Texas, setting in motion preparations by the Department of Homeland Security and the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

But in Brownsville, Texas—just north of the U.S.-Mexico border—National Weather Service (NWS) meteorologists don't expect dramatic effects from Hurricane Dean.

"We don't anticipate anything much in the way of effects," Joseph Tomaselli, a meteorologist at the Brownsville NWS office, told National Geographic News. "We may see some breezy conditions here."

Tomaselli said Dean could bring scattered showers and thunderstorms and probably heavy rainfall in some places.

"It appears at this time that the real impact will be to South Padre Island," Tomaselli said.

"We anticipate issuing a coastal flooding warning within the next 24 hours," he said, "with significant swells from Hurricane Dean making an impact on the lower Texas coast."

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