Hurricane Ike has become a strong hurricane, as another storm pummelled parts of the Caribbean, and Louisiana residents began to return to their homes in the wake of Hurricane Gustav.

Hurricane Ike, currently located about 980 km east-northeast of the Leeward Islands, gained strength quickly Wednesday and was upgraded to a major category 4 storm late in the evening after beginning the day as a tropical storm, the National Hurricane Centre said.

It had sustained winds of 215 km per hour and was expected to move over open waters in the west-central Atlantic over the next several days, forecasters at the centre said. It was too soon to tell whether any land would be threatened.

Ike is following close on the heels of Tropical Storm Hanna, which was dropped from hurricane to tropical storm status and was aiming for the southeast Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands, the centre said. Hanna was about 260 km from San Salvador, Bahamas at O3OO GMT Thursday and was expected to reach the central or northwest Bahamas in the next few days.

Hanna was blamed for at least 19 deaths in Haiti and sent thousands in the Dominican Republic fleeing for refuge Wednesday from the third storm in just a week.

Another storm, Josephine, had weakened over the eastern Atlantic about 605 km west of the Cape Verde Islands.

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By Richard Black

Typhoon Nuri was the 12th tropical storm to hit the Philippines this year

The strongest tropical storms are becoming even stronger as the world’s oceans warm, scientists have confirmed.

Analysis of satellite data shows that in the last 25 years, strong cyclones, hurricanes and typhoons have become more frequent in most of the tropics.

Writing in the journal Nature, they say the number of weaker storms has not noticeably altered.

The idea that climate change might be linked to tropical storms has been highly controversial.

A few years ago, it was claimed that hurricanes would become more frequent as well as more common in a warming world.

The swirling winds pick up energy from a warm ocean.

But recent research has suggested they would occur less frequently, though likely to pack a more powerful punch each time.

James Elsner from Florida State University in Tallahassee, US and colleagues believed the link might become clearer if they analysed data according to the strength of storms.

“We’re seeing a signal, and it’s telling us that the strongest effect (of rising ocean temperatures) is on the strongest storms,” he told BBC News.

“At average or median wind speeds, about 40m/s, we don’t see a trend; but when we get up to 50 or 60m/s we do see a trend.”

A hurricane featuring winds of 40m/s (89mph) is a Category One storm according to the often-used Saffir-Simpson scale.

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