Having lost some of her punch, Hurricane Emily moved on Monday into the Gulf of Mexico where warmer water temperatures could give her one more strong shot of power as she moves towards the Mexico-U.S. border.
The storm left behind damage over the weekend in the popular resort area of Cancun, where thousands were left in shelters, waiting out the storm. Emily also left death and damage in Grenada and Jamaica along its route.
Emily’s sustained winds dropped to around 75 mph on Monday, just barely above the 74 mph requirement for a storm to be a hurricane. Moving over warmer Gulf waters could strengthen the storm over the next 24-48 hours. The hurricane will likely reach Mexico’s mainland near the Texas border by late Tuesday.
According to the National Hurricane Center, as of 2 p.m. ET on Monday, the storm was traveling west-northwest at about 17 mph. Its center was 490 miles (785 kilometers) east-southeast of La Pesca, Mexico, and about 510 miles east-southeast of Brownsville, Texas.
Emily came ashore early Monday north of Tulum, Mexico, on the Yucatan coast as a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane strength, with 135 mph winds (217 km/h).
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