Hurricane Idalia became a category 1 storm near the western tip of Cuba early Tuesday morning on its path to Florida, the National Hurricane Center said.

The storm is expected to rapidly intensify into an extremely dangerous major hurricane before making landfall in the state on Wednesday.

Hurricane Idalia is expected to intensify considerably as it heads toward Florida, where officials already have told people to flee, closed schools and shuttered a major airport ahead of a predicted landfall Wednesday along the Gulf Coast.

With powerful winds and life-threatening storm surge, the hurricane is due to hit at Category 3 strength, and millions are under storm warnings as Idalia may bust precedent as the first major hurricane in at least 172 years to track into Apalachee Bay, according to the National Hurricane Center and its Tallahassee office.

"On the forecast track, the center of Idalia is forecast to move over the eastern Gulf of Mexico today, reach the Gulf coast of Florida within the Hurricane Warning area on Wednesday, and move close to the Carolina coastline on Thursday," the NHC said.