Hurricane Delta continues intensifying; now a Category 4 storm

TAMPA, Fla. - Hurricane Delta continued its rapid intensification this morning, reaching Category 4 storm status and is still expected to make landfall this weekend along the northern Gulf Coast.

As of Tuesday evening, the National Hurricane Center said the storm had winds of 145 mph. 

"It's moving into an area that favors rapid intensification with that warm, deep water of the northwest Caribbean Sea," explained FOX 13's meteorologist Dave Osterberg. 

Forecasters say Delta may weaken as it brushes the Yucatan Peninsula, but restrengthen back into a Category 4 as it crosses the Gulf of Mexico. 

The latest update from NHC doesn't dramatically change the forecast track, but the Florida Panhandle is now outside of the cone.

"What's going to happen is it's going to encounter cooler, shallower water which will allow it to weaken a little bit," Osterberg said, "but still it will be a hurricane as it makes its way likely onshore probably in Louisiana late Friday, early Saturday morning."

"But yeah, south Louisiana," he added, "getting ready for another hurricane at the end of the week."

LINK: Hurricane Delta forecasts and model runs on MyFoxHurricane.com

As Delta shifted west on Monday, Cuba withdrew a hurricane warning for its western province of Pinar del Rio and replaced it with a tropical storm warning. There was also a tropical storm warning for the Cayman Islands including Little Cayman and Cayman Brac.

But the brunt of the hurricane was expected to be felt by the resort-studded northeastern tip of Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula, which was forecast to start seeing hurricane conditions Tuesday night with the storm reaching land in the early hours of Wednesday. That part of Mexico is still soaked from Tropical Storm Gamma which hit its resorts over the weekend.

LINK: Hurricane Delta forecasts and model runs on MyFoxHurricane.com

The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season has broken numerous records. In mid-September, forecasters officially ran out of traditional storm names with the formation of Wilfred. The NHC moved onto the Greek alphabet for hurricane names, which was the first use of a Greek letter for a storm since 2005. Wilfred was soon followed by Alpha and Beta.

Gamma is forecast to dissipate by Wednesday. The last named storm during the 2005 hurricane system was Zeta.