Hurricane Felix reached Category 5 strength Sunday evening, capping an incredible intensification over the weekend that saw it go from a tropical depression to the highest level hurricane in less than 48 hours.
At 7pm Sunday, Felix was packing maximum sustained winds near 165 miles per hour. NOAA’s National Hurricane Center in Miami was predicted the hurricane to intensify even further – up to 172 mph – by Monday morning. It was located about 390 southeast of Kingston, Jamaica.
The storm continues to track west-northwest at 18 mph, a course that would have it pass south of Grand Cayman by some 250 miles early Tuesday morning.
Felix is expected to bring squalls with tropical force winds to Grand Cayman starting Monday evening. In addition, the west and south coast of the island will likely see large waves, with one to three feet of storm surge possible.
A tropical depression on Friday night, Felix was classified a tropical storm by NOAA at 5am Saturday morning. It became a hurricane Saturday night an intensified steadily on Sunday as it moved across an environment of low wind shear and high sea surface temperatures in the Caribbean Sea.
A high pressure ridge has kept Felix from gaining much latitude as it crossed the Caribbean. It is expected to make landfall in Belize Wednesday afternoon as an extremely dangerous Category 5 storm.
Felix follows a similar path as Hurricane Dean two weeks ago. That storm made landfall as a Category 5 hurricane on the Yucatan peninsula, causing widespread damage.
Relatively small in size, Felix’s hurricane winds only extend 25 miles outward from its centre, while tropical storm force winds only extend 115 miles from centre.
The Cayman Islands Government issued a Tropical Storm Watch for the island of Grand Cayman at 10am Sunday. That Watch remained in effect Sunday evening.
The central pressure of Felix dropped from 980mb to 934mb in nine hours. The average drop in pressure of 5.11mb per hour is one of the most rapid deepening rates observed by NOAA..
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