A hurricane watch is now covering the majority of the Florida Keys as Tropical Storm Fay is predicted to strike the US sometime tonight.
A tropical storm warning was already in place in the region but this has now been upgraded after five people were killed over the weekend in Haiti and the Dominican Republic when Fay battered the islands with torrential rain.
At 9am this morning the storm, the sixth of the 2008 Atlantic season, was centred over Cuba 155 miles south-southeast of Key West and its maximum wind sustained strength was almost touching 50mph.