Ike 'extremely dangerous'
2008-09-04 11:49
Miami - Hurricane Ike turned into an "extremely dangerous" Category 4 storm in the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday with winds of 215km/h, the US National Hurricane Centre reported.
"Ike becomes an extremely dangerous category four hurricane on the five-level Saffir-Simpson scale," the centre said in its latest advisory.
The powerful storm, the fifth hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic season, was moving over the Atlantic far from any land and it was too early to predict whether "any land areas might eventually be affected", it said.
As of 03:00 GMT, the centre of Ike was located about 980km northeast of the Leeward Islands, moving west-northwest at 28km/h, the centre said.
The storm was expected to move west over the west-central Atlantic over the next two days.
- AFP