Fueling on the warm Caribbean Sea, Tropical Storm Ida gained speed and strength and was expected to become a hurricane Saturday night or Sunday morning as it moved north on a path that could threaten Florida Panhandle and other Gulf Coast states by next week.
At 7 p.m., Ida's winds had hit 70 mph and the National Hurricane Center said it was likely the storm would grow into a Category 1 hurricane within 12 hours -- just as it churned between Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula and the western coast of Cuba.
But forecasters expected Ida to weaken as it hits cooler Gulf of Mexico waters, cooler air and stronger wind shear as it approaches the mainland around Tuesday.
Once in the Gulf, some uncertainity remained about Ida's track.
Forecasters made some significant adjustments to plots issued earlier Saturday, removing most of Florida from the potential cone of exposure. The updated track would put Ida -- likely reduced to a wet, windy remnant -- just off the Alabama-Florida border Tuesday with the coast stretching from New Orleans to Apalachicola possibily exposed to strong winds and waves.
Hurricane watches and warning were posted for sections of Yucatan Peninsula. Tropical storm warnings were in effect for Grand Cayman Island and the Cuban province of Pinar Del Rio.
The hurricane center said it could post hurricane watches for much of western Cuban, where three to five inches of rain was expected, later Saturday.
The state emergency operations center in Tallahassee was monitoring Ida's track and urging residents to do the same. Ida, even if it weakens below tropical storm strength, could bring wicked winds and weather to some part of the Gulf Coast as early as Tuesday.
Ida formed with less than a month left in the hurricane season, which officially ends on Dec. 1, but forecasters said that's not all that unusual. The average is one or two a year with most, like Ida, forming in the late season hurricane hot house of the Caribbean.
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