Wilma Now A Category 5 Hurricane

Hurricane Wilma strengthened early Wednesday, becoming a Category 4 hurricane at 1 a.m. ET, and 90 minutes later escalating to a Category 5 storm, with top sustained winds near 175 mph.

The record-tying 12th hurricane of the season formed in the Caribbean on Tuesday, set on a course that would brush Central America, drench Cancun and then belt Cuba and Florida as a major cyclone.

Wilma is now located about 405 miles southeast of Cozumel, Mexico, is moving west-northwest at about 8 miles per hour, with hurricane force winds extending 15 miles from the eye, and tropical force winds extending some 155 miles from the center of the storm.

CBS hurricane expert Bryan Norcross says that Wilma could hit Florida on Saturday and has the "potential to be a very bad hurricane."

"It does look like it poses a significant threat to Florida by the weekend. Of course, these are four- and five-day forecasts, so things can change," said Dan Brown, a meteorologist at the Center.

Wilma's pressure readings Wednesday morning indicate that it is the strongest hurricane of the season, said Trisha Wallace, another meteorologist at the National Hurricane Center. Wilma had a reading of 892 millibars, the same reading as a devastating unnamed hurricane that hit the Florida Keys in 1935.

"We do not know how long it will maintain this Category 5 state," Wallace said.

Jamaica, Cuba, Nicaragua and Honduras were getting heavy rain from the storm, though it wasn't likely to make landfall in any of those countries, she said. Forecasts showed it would likely turn toward the narrow Yucatan Channel between Cuba and Mexico's Cancun region — then move into the storm-weary Gulf.

The government of flood-prone Honduras warned that Hurricane Wilma posed "an imminent threat to life and property of the people of the Atlantic coast." Neighboring Nicaragua also declared an alert.

The hurricane's outer bands brought rain, high winds and heavy surf to the Atlantic border of Honduras and Nicaragua border, but Honduran emergency officials said they had not yet ordered any evacuations.

Wilma already had been blamed for one death in Jamaica as a tropical depression on Sunday and it pounded the island for a third day Tuesday, flooding several low-lying communities and triggering mudslides that blocked roads and damaged several homes, said Barbara Carby, head of Jamaica's emergency management office.

She said that some 250 people are in shelters throughout the island.

In the Cayman Islands, authorities urged businesses to close early Tuesday to give employees time to prepare for the storm. Schools were ordered to close on Wednesday.

Honduran President Ricardo Maduro declared "a maximum alert" along the northern coast and his office said emergency personnel and resources had been sent to the area, where evacuations are possible.

U.S. Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutierrez is expected to visit Honduras' Atlantic coast Wednesday for meetings with Central American businessmen.

In Nicaragua, national disaster prevention chief Geronimo Giusto said the army, police and rescue workers have been mobilized and evacuation points have been readied.

Honduras and its neighbors already are recovering from flooding and mudslides caused by earlier storms. Officials say Hurricane Stan killed at least 796 people, most of them in Guatemala.

Spain's Queen Sofia on Tuesday toured Guatemalan communities damaged by Stan, including the town of Panajachel, where some 200 houses were washed away by the flooded Rio San Francisco. Guatemalan officials say that hurricane destroyed 8,595 homes across the country and 140,000 people remain evacuated.

Florida, meanwhile, has seen seven hurricanes hit or pass close by since August 2004, causing more than $20 billion in estimated damage and killing nearly 150 people.

But forecasters said Wilma should avoid the central U.S. Gulf coast devastated by Hurricanes Katrina and Rita earlier this year.

"There's no scenario now that takes it toward Louisiana or Mississippi, but that could change," said Max Mayfield, director of the National Hurricane Center.

The six-month hurricane season doesn't end until Nov. 30, but Wilma exhausts the list of storm names for 2005. Any new storms would be named with letters from the Greek alphabet, starting with Alpha.

Since record-keeping began in 1851, only once before — in 1969 — did 12 hurricanes form. Wilma also ties the record as the season's 21st named storm.