Mighty Ike on a Gulf track

SARASOTA COUNTY - A restrengthened Hurricane Ike headed toward Cuba Saturday on a path expected to send the powerful storm south of Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico.

Forecasts from the National Weather Service have the hurricane making landfall on Cuba tonight before spinning out into the Gulf as a weaker storm, several hundred miles off Florida's west coast.

But the National Hurricane Center warned late Saturday that Southwest Florida remains in the wide area of possible paths for the storm, which powered up to a Category 4 north of Hispaniola with combination of warm water and reduced wind interference.

A high pressure system to the north of Ike has stayed stronger than expected, pushing the storm farther south and preventing it from turning northwest toward Florida's peninsula.

"The delayed turn is good for your area," said Jeff Masters, a former hurricane hunter and co-founder of Weather Underground.

The storm still has an uncertain and hard-to-predict path that has forced millions from the Caribbean to Florida and Louisiana to Mexico to nervously wonder where it could eventually strike.

The National Hurricane Center's official track has the storm leaving Cuba's northwest coast Tuesday afternoon and entering the Gulf as a Category 1 storm.

But Stacy Stewart, a meteorologist with the center, warned that a shift of just 60 to 70 miles north of the expected track could keep Ike's center over warm water north of Cuba. That could possibly allow the storm to strengthen to a top-level Category 5 storm and turn northwest, delivering a powerful uppercut to the Florida peninsula.

"A difference of that distance makes all the difference in the world as to what any location would experience," because the storm is small in size, Stewart said.

The computer models on which forecasters rely basically agree that the storm will head into the Gulf. The models disagree on what will happen to the storm after it leaves Cuba's west coast.

Some have Ike continuing west toward Texas, while others have the storm turning more sharply and heading toward the Florida panhandle.

The weather patterns that steer hurricanes will be weak in the Gulf, Masters said, setting up a possible situation like Hurricane Elena in 1985.

Elena left Cuba for Louisiana, hooked back east toward Florida, pirouetted northwest of Tampa and made landfall in Louisiana.

Ike's path and its effect on Florida's weather have depended a lot on the high pressure system to its north that has kept the storm moving west and slightly to the south.

Hurricanes tend to move at the periphery of high pressure systems, heading west along their southern boundaries and turning north around the high's western edge.

That high pressure system is showing some signs of lifting to the north as Tropical Storm Hanna moves up the East Coast and out of the way, Stewart said.

"We've had some wobbles in the track, at one point moving northward," Stewart said.

But a low pressure trough has not affected the storm as much as expected, and the timing of the interaction with Ike has changed.

"These storms have a mind of their own," Florida Gov. Charlie Crist said after a meeting with mayors and emergency officials. "There are no rules, so what we have to do is be prepared, be smart, vigilant and alert."

Visitors to the Florida Keys were under a mandatory evacuation order Saturday and a light but steady stream of traffic rolled out of Key West ahead of the storm.

In typical fashion, laid-back residents and business owners kept their shops, bars and restaurants open.

Rainfall amounts of 4 to 8 inches are expected over the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeastern Bahamas, while Hispaniola and Cuba could see 6 to 12 inches, which could cause life-threatening flash floods and mud slides in mountainous terrain, the hurricane center said.

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The Associated Press contributed to this story.