Helene was heading toward the island of Cozumel off Mexico's Yucatan Peninsula as of the National Hurricane Center's 10 p.m. CDT advisory, with sustained winds increasing to 60 mph. The storm is projected to dump heavy rain and trigger possible mudslides across western Cuba while passing between the island and the Yucatan on Tuesday night.

Helene is expected to make landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida on Thursday evening after traveling northward over the Gulf of Mexico over the past two days. At 1 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Helene was situated approximately 65 miles east of Cozumel, Mexico, and 120 miles southwest of the southern tip of Cuba.

“Helene’s wind field will be so large that even passing 325 miles west of Miami on Thursday is not enough to keep the entire #Florida peninsula from being placed under a Tropical Storm Warning,” John Morales, hurricane specialist at NBC5, posted on Twitter Wednesday morning.