© Victor Ruiz Garcia/AP
Debris left by Hurricane Delta in Cancún. Video footage showed flailing palm trees being battered by the wind, driving rain, damaged hotels, felled trees and buildings.
Debris left by Hurricane Delta in Cancún. Video footage showed flailing palm trees being battered by the wind, driving rain, damaged hotels, felled trees and buildings.
A hurricane watch was issued for parts of the coast from High Island, Texas, eastward to Grand Isle, Louisiana, and a storm surge watch is in effect from High Island to the Alabama-Florida border, according to the National Hurricane Center.
"Delta strengthening while moving over the south-central Gulf of Mexico," the center said Wednesday evening. "Life-threatening storm surge and damaging winds increasingly likely along portions of the the northern Gulf Coast beginning Friday."
While the center predicts the storm could strengthen into a Category 3 hurricane Thursday night, cooler water and upper level winds may weaken Delta to a Category 2 by the time it hits the US coast.
Delta's projected path looks eerily similar to that of Hurricane Laura, which made landfall in Louisiana as a Category 4 storm on August 27, leaving 15 people dead, hundreds of thousands without power and destroying more than 10,000 homes in southwest Louisiana.
Comment: Related: Dozens of waterspouts spotted over Great Lakes in Ontario this week, with at least 29 on Wednesday alone