Hurricane Maria has intensified into an extremely dangerous maximum-strength Category 5 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson wind scale, the US National Hurricane Center has said..
Hurricane Maria was about 55 km northeast of Martinique, with maximum sustained winds of 215 km per hour, the Miami-based weather forecaster said.
"The center of Maria will move near Dominica and the adjacent Leeward Islands during the next few hours, over the extreme northeastern Caribbean Sea the remainder of tonight and Tuesday, and approach Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands Tuesday night and Wednesday," the NHC said.
It will be the second major storm to hit the region this month after Hurricane Irma claimed the lives of more than 80 people on Caribbean islands and the US mainland.
Another powerful hurricane is threatening the Caribbean - Hurricane Maria could hit areas already devastated by Hurricane Irma pic.twitter.com/rRyM95PwGE
— RTÉ News (@rtenews) September 18, 2017
US Virgin Islands Governor Kenneth Mapp warned residents not to underestimate the threat from Maria, or its potential to change track. "Just remember this is a live animal," he said.
The island of St Croix looked to face hurricane force winds with nearby St Thomas and St John seeing tropical storm force winds, Mr Mapp said, adding, "given the current conditions of St Thomas and St John, that's not good."
Maria was expected to whip up storm surges - seawater driven ashore by wind - of up to 2.7m, the NHC said.
Parts of Puerto Rico could see up to 64cm of rain, it said.
Hurricane and tropical storm warnings and watches were in effect for a string of islands in the area, including the US and British Virgin Islands, Antigua and Barbuda and the French-Dutch island of Saint Martin.
Several of those islands were devastated earlier this month when Irma rampaged through the Caribbean.
Puerto Rico, a US territory which Irma grazed as it headed toward Cuba and Florida, opened shelters and began to dismantle construction cranes that could be vulnerable to Maria's high winds.
More than 1,700 residents of Barbuda were evacuated to neighboring Antigua after Irma damaged nearly every building there.
Streets were flooded in some residential parts of the island of Barbados, doused with heavy rain since Sunday as the storm passed to the north of the island.
Forecasters were also tracking Category 1 Hurricane Jose, which was 120kph winds and was located about 430km east-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina.
Jose's center was forecast to remain off the east coast of the United States for the next few days, bringing dangerous surf and rip currents from Delaware through Massachusetts
