Ike, the ninth tropical storm of the busy Atlantic hurricane season, formed between Africa and the Caribbean and is expected to grow into a hurricane that could threaten U.S. and the Caribbean.
The tropical storm is moving on the heels Atlanta Pisa to Hurricane Gustav, which struck New Orleans on Monday when it made landfall in the U.S. Gulf coast of Mexico. Ike also follows closely the hurricane Hanna, who has been strengthened as it approaches the southeastern Bahamas Islands.
The critical point of the six-month hurricane season in Atlanta tends to occur around September 10, with an average of 10 tropical storms. Six of them charge force and become hurricanes.
Thus, the formation of Ike and the possibility that another tropical depression develops in the coming days means that the storm activity this year was considerably higher than the norm, which is bad news for U.S. production of oil and gas in the Gulf of Mexico and for the millions of people living in the Caribbean and the east coast of the United States.
At 17:00 local time, Tropical Storm Ike was about 2,250 kilometres east of the Leeward Islands and was moving westward at 28 kilometers per hour, according to the National Hurricane Center in the United States (CNH).
Its maximum sustained speed was already in the 85 kilometres per hour and is expected to reach the level of hurricane - with winds of at least 119 mph - within the next 36 hours, according to CNH.
The computer models that are used to predict the path of tropical storms have indicated they are likely to put Ike heading west, just reaching the northern part of the Spanish island of La, shared by Haiti and the Dominican Republic.
The CNH, an agency based in Miami, warned that by then Ike might be a hurricane "serious". The most destructive cyclones and higher caliber are those classified under Category 3 or higher on the Saffir-Simpson scale of intensity of storms.
Hurricane Katrina was Category 3 when it made landfall near New Orleans in 2005 and flooded the city, killing 1,500 people in the U.S. coast. Hurricane Gustav was also a category 3 on Monday, shortly before reaching land and weakened.
The forecast path and intensity of storms are subject to errors, although some models suggest that Ike will take due south-southwest, potentially threatening to Haiti, Cuba or the Gulf of Mexico, where the U.S. produces 25 percent of its oil and 15 percent of its natural gas.
