A US Navy reserve hurricane hunter plane that flew into the monstrous weather system late night on Monday ,has been recorded with maximum sustained winds of 256 kilometers per hour, with higher gusts.
That makes hurricane Dean "a potentially catastrophic category five hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane scale," the Miami-based US National Weather Centre said.
Since record keeping started in 1886, only 28 Atlantic hurricanes are known to have reached that intensity.
The outer bands of the storm started hitting Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula, late on Monday, which braced for the full fury ,the hurricane was expected to unleash when it barrels ashore.
At least nine people has been killed by the Storm across the Caribbean.
Authorities nonetheless heaved a sigh of relief as forecasters said Cancun and other popular tourist destinations along Mexico's Caribbean coast would likely be spared a direct hit, with Dean expected to make landfall in a less populated area further south.
But it is feared that the usually crowded resorts could be battered by huge waves and flooded by storm surge, which could led to the evacuation of thousands of tourists.
Authorities also deployed about 1,000 police officers to prevent the type of looting that followed the devastation wrought by Wilma, a category of five hurricane that has killed 10 people and left millions of dollars in damages in Cancun two years ago. - DDNEWS
