MIAMI: Hurricane Ike barreled west across central Cuba on Monday after raising the death toll and destruction across the already beleaguered islands of the waterlogged Caribbean.

Hurricane Ike strengthened rapidly into an fiercely dangerous Category 4 hurricane in the open Atlantic on Wednesday and Tropical Storm Hanna intensified to a lesser degree as it swirled over the Bahamas toward the southeast US Coast.

Ike posed no immediate threat to land but strengthened explosively, growing in the space of a few hours from a tropical storm to an intense Category 4 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale.

Warm Seas Convert More Energy Into Cyclone Winds

Paris: Global warming is likely to boost the power of the strongest tropical cyclones, a study released on Wednesday says.
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As the world's oceans get warmer, the strongest tropical storms get stronger, climate scientists reported on Wednesday as the remnants of Hurricane Gustav spun out over the central United States.

"If the seas continue to warm, we can expect to see stronger storms in the future," James Elsner of Florida State University said.
"As far as this year goes, as a season, we did see the oceans warm and I think there's some reason to believe that that's the reason we're seeing the amount of activity we are."

ST.

NEW ORLEANS: Strong winds and rain began to lash the Gulf Coast early Monday as Hurricane Gustav continued its path toward the coast of Louisiana, where the center of the storm was expected to make la

NEW ORLEANS: Hurricane Gustav sent strong winds and lashing rains into New Orleans early on Monday, but the storm lost some of its power and was expected to move ashore to the west, sparing the city its full force.

Gustav weakened to a category 2 hurricane shortly before making landfall, although it was already pounding Louisiana

P. Sainath

Gustav, of course, is non-political. What follows Gustav will be anything but that.

Clouds from hurricane Gustav approaching New Orleans. Gustav brings back memories of Katrina