Hurricane Sally churned slowly towards the coast of the southern US states of Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi on Monday as it intensified into Category 2 storm.
The National Hurricane Center said the storm in the Gulf of Mexico was packing maximum sustained winds of around 100 miles (160 kilometers) per hour.
At 2100 GMT, it was located 145 miles southeast of Biloxi, Mississippi, and heading in a west-northwesterly direction at six mph.
