Major Hurricane Gustav Closes in on Western Cuba

Credit: NASA/JPL, Posted on: Sunday, 31 August 2008, 05:29 CDT Download full size image

Gustav exploded into a major hurricane in the overnight hours from Aug. 29 to Aug. 30. He's now a Category 3 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale with maximum sustained winds near 125 mph, and he's enroute to western Cuba.

At 11:00 a.m. EDT Gustav's center was near latitude 21.2 north and longitude 82.1 west or about 55 miles east-southeast of the Isle of Youth and about 185 miles east of the western tip of Cuba. He's moving northwest near 14 mph and will pass over western parts of Cuba today and tonight. By early Sunday, Aug. 31, he'll be back into the southern Gulf of Mexico.

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