continues to strengthen Wednesday and could become a major hurricane by week's end, according to the National Hurricane Center, as it nears Bermuda before pushing out to sea.
Just the , Earl has sustained winds of 85 mph, with stronger gusts.
The hurricane is moving north at 8 mph. It is expected to continue strengthening into a major, Category 3 storm as it passes Thursday night to the southeast of Bermuda.
A tropical storm warning is in effect for Bermuda.
"Although Earl's center is forecast to pass southeast of Bermuda, the wind field is expected to grow, with tropical-storm-force winds forecast to spread across the island beginning Thursday afternoon and continuing through Friday morning," the hurricane center said.
The storm is forecast to move northeast from there, away from any land mass.
Earl became the fifth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season Friday, forming 185 miles east of the Leeward Islands.
Hurricane Danielle latest
, which on Friday became the first of this season's Atlantic hurricanes, is still churning far out in the open ocean and "continues to produce a large area of very rough seas over the central-north Atlantic," the hurricane center said Wednesday morning.
It is expected to weaken into a tropical storm Thursday.
When Danielle became a named storm September 1, it was the first since July 3 -- meaning last month was the first August in 25 years to go without a single named storm in the Atlantic.
The last time a season's first hurricane formed that late was September 11, 2013, with Hurricane Humberto.
The runs from June 1 to November 30. The areas covered include the Atlantic Ocean, Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea.
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