Tropical depression Irene was getting better organised in the central Atlantic, forecasters said, but still posed no immediate threat to land.
Irene had top sustained winds of 56kph on Tuesday night, just below the 63km threshold to become a tropical storm. Forecasters said it was possible for Irene to
strengthen into a tropical storm by Wednesday, but said the forecast wasn’t clear.
”It’s not looking too impressive at this point,” said Dave Roberts, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Centre.
At 3am GMT, Irene was about 1 432km southeast of Bermuda, moving west near 16km, forecasters said.
It’s expected to move in the general direction of the United States East Coast over the next five days, but Roberts said it shouldn’t yet cause concern.
”It’s too early,” he said. ”There’s so much uncertainty in this track.”
Irene became a tropical storm on Sunday, breaking records as the earliest ninth named storm in the Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1 and ends on November 30. Normally, there are only two named storms by this time in the season, hurricane specialist James Franklin said.
It weakened into a tropical depression on Monday. – Sapa-AP