NEW YORK, NY
Tropical storm Laura is now a hurricane, and it’s expected to grow even more powerful as it whirls toward Louisiana and Texas.
The storm passed over Cuba and into the Gulf of Mexico Tuesday morning (Aug. 25), strengthening into a hurricane even as the scattered remains of tropical storm Marco drifted away from the site of their Louisiana landfall. Laura is expected to pick up energy from the warm gulf waters in the next couple days, then make landfall as a Category 3 “major hurricane” — 2020’s first — with wind speeds of at least 111 mph (178 km/h), according to the National Hurricane Center (NHC).
As with most tropical cyclones, the most significant threat from Laura is flooding, not wind. Already, as a tropical storm, it has killed 13 people on the island of Hispaniola. Eleven of those who died were in Haiti and two in the Dominican Republic, according to The Weather Channel.
