Emily Sets Sights on Jamaica; Texas Coast Could Receive Visit Next Week

While still days away, folks along the U.S. Gulf Coast are keeping an eye on Hurricane Emily, as it roared through the eastern Caribbean toward Jamaica on Friday after damaging properties and killing at least one person in Grenada. This year’s season appears like it will be a busy one as Emily follows on the heels of Dennis.

Emily was downgraded to a Category 3 with winds of 125 mph Friday morning after it passed the Windward Islands.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami reported that the season’s second hurricane would move just south of Jamaica on Saturday, pass the Cayman Islands and target Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Sunday night.

Jamaica issued a hurricane warning and the Cayman Islands were under a hurricane watch, while tropical storm warnings were removed for Venezuela and the islands of Bonaire, Curacao and Aruba.

If it continues on the same trajectory, it will make landfall next Wednesday in the vicinity between Tuxpan, Mexico, and Galveston, Texas, a some 600-mile span.

Editor’s note: See related item in Texas/South Central news.