Strengthening Hurricane Rina headed for Yucatan

Brian K. Sullivan and Yee Kai Pin in Bloomberg News: Hurricane Rina strengthened to a Category 2 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale as it churned over Caribbean waters toward resorts on Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, the National Hurricane Center said.

Rina’s top winds are 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour, up from 80 mph earlier, according to an NHC website advisory at 8 a.m. Miami time. It’s the sixth hurricane of the 2011 Atlantic storm season that runs from June through November.

“Additional strengthening is forecast during the next day or so” as the storm spins over warm waters off the north coast of Honduras, the center said. Rina may become a major storm later today or tomorrow, the NHC said.

Mexico issued a hurricane watch from north of Punta Gruesa to Cancun, which means hurricane conditions are possible within the area and readied 1,130 storm shelters in the state of Quintana Roo, which includes Cancun and Cozumel. The country also declared a tropical storm watch for the east coast of the Yucatan from Chetumal to Punta Gruesa, the NHC said...

Hurricane Rina on October 24, 2011, from NASA