At 1500 GMT, Wilma's winds accelerated to 75 miles (120 kilometers) per hour, making it the 12th hurricane of the 2005 season. It was expected to strengthen later Tuesday.

"Wilma is forecast to become a major hurricane in the northwestern Caribbean Sea," the Miami-based US National Hurricane Center said in a statement.

"And as it progresses, high pressure over the Gulf of Mexico is expected to weaken, ... allowing Wilma to move through the northwestern Caribbean and enter the southeastern Gulf of Mexico in about three days."

The center of the storm was located 195 miles (320 kilometers) south-southeast of Grand Cayman island.

The storm had been creeping northwestward at seven miles (11 kilometers) an hour and was expected to continue moving in that direction for the next 24 hours, the hurricane center said.

"Hurricane-force winds extend outward up to 15 miles (30 kilometers) from the center, ... and tropical storm-force winds extend outward up to 120 miles (195 kilometers)," it added.

Wilma, matching a record set during the 1933 Atlantic hurricane season, in which there were also 21 storms, gathered force in the Caribbean on Monday, threatening storm-battered Central America and pushing oil prices up sharply.

The storm threatened Honduras, where authorities issued a red alert and prepared for evacuations.

Authorities in neighboring Nicaragua and El Salvador also kept a close eye on the storm's course, while the storm dumped rain on Cuba, which evacuated more than 5,000 people from flood-prone areas.

A tropical storm warning and hurricane watch also remained in effect for the Cayman Islands.

Forecasters said the storm could enter the Gulf of Mexico this week and threaten the hurricane-battered US Gulf Coast, which is still clearing up after Hurricane Katrina killed more than 1,200 people before being followed by Hurricane Rita.

Wilma also raised concerns regarding oil production in the Gulf of Mexico.

A climate study released Monday said the continental United States will face more extreme temperatures during the next century and worse rainfall along its hurricane-battered Gulf Coast.

The study, published on the online edition of the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, warned that greenhouse gases will likely swell to twice their current levels by the century's end.

It also predicted that the southwestern United States could endure as much as a 500 percent increase in hot events, leaving less water for the growing population; that the Gulf Coast region would receive more rainfall in shorter time spans; and that summers in the northeast would be shorter and hotter.

The 2005 Atlantic hurricane season has been particularly severe.

After Hurricane Katrina ravaged New Orleans, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida in August, Central America was slammed earlier this month by deadly Hurricane Stan, whose rains triggered floods and mudslides that left more than 2,000 dead in Guatemala alone. Dozens more were killed in El Salvador, Nicaragua and Mexico.

Meanwhile, police evacuated several thousand people from the Massachusetts city of Taunton as a dam threatened to burst and send a 10-foot (three-meter) surge through the downtown area.

Officials said heavy rainfall over the past week had placed enormous pressure on the wooden Whittendon Pond Dam, which controls water flow along the Mill River that passes through Taunton.

If the dam were to fail, officials said a second dam farther upstream would also likely collapse, emptying two lakes at the same time.

"If the dams go, they're expecting a 10-foot surge," said Taunton Police Department spokesman Eric Nichols, who put the number of displaced people at 5,000 in the northeast city of some 50,000 residents.

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