Florence Gaining Strength In Atlantic

Tropical Storm Florence formed far out in the open Atlantic on Tuesday, and forecasters said it will probably become a hurricane.

But they said it is too soon to tell if the sixth named storm of the hurricane season would reach the United States.

At 11 p.m. Tuesday, Florence was about 895 miles east of the northern Leeward Islands, with maximum sustained winds of about 45 miles per hour, moving west-northwest at about 12 miles per hour, and expected to strengthen over the next 24 hours.

"Our forecast does have it becoming a hurricane by Friday morning — minimal hurricane, Category 1," National Hurricane Center meteorologist Mark Willis said.

The storm follows on the heels of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which was briefly the season's first hurricane before weakening and hitting Florida and North Carolina last week as a tropical storm. It formed over the southern Caribbean on Aug. 25.

At least nine deaths in the United States were blamed on Ernesto, which also killed two people in Haiti, delayed the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis and blacked out thousands of homes and businesses from North Carolina to New York state.

Last year's Atlantic storm season had a record 28 named storms and 15 hurricanes, including Katrina.

So far the 2006 Atlantic hurricane season has not been as intense as was initially feared. The National Hurricane Center scaled back its forecast in August, to a prediction of between 12 and 15 named storms and seven to nine hurricanes.