Hurricane Dean made landfall in Mexico again, battering the nation's central coast with winds of 160 kilometers per hour. In Miami, VOA's Brian Wagner reports that forecasters are warning of possible flooding and mudslides.

ESA satellites are tracking the path of Hurricane Dean as it rips across the Caribbean Sea carrying winds as high as 260 km/h. The hurricane, which has already claimed eight lives, is forecast to slam into Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula on Tuesday morning.

Already a killer storm, hurricane Dean strengthened into a "potentially catastrophic" category five hurricane just hours before it was expected to slam Mexico's Caribbean coast early this morning.

Hurricane Dean crept into the northwestern Caribbean Sea early Monday after unleashing its fury on Jamaica, prompting its government to declare a state of emergency.

Mexico and Belize have issued hurricane warnings as Hurricane Dean churns across the Caribbean, bringing torrential rains and winds of more than 240 kilometers-per-hour.

Sea surface temperatures are one of the key ingredients for tropical cyclone formation and they were warming up in the Gulf of Mexico, Caribbean and eastern Atlantic Ocean by the middle of August. As a result, they helped spawn Hurricane Dean in the central Atlantic, and Tropical Storm Erin in the Gulf of Mexico, both during the week of August 13.

Space shuttle Endeavour on Sunday undocked from the International Space Station (ISS) a day early, as NASA kept a wary eye on Hurricane Dean.