Tropical Storm Fred gathered strength Tuesday in the eastern Atlantic and was expected to become a hurricane by Wednesday, US meteorologists said.
At 2100 GMT Tuesday, Fred was 410 miles (655 kilometers) west-southwest of the Cape Verde Islands, packing winds above 70 miles per hour, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center (NHC) said.
"Additional strengthening is likely and Fred is expected to become a hurricane later tonight or early tomorrow," the NHC, a US government agency which tracks and predicts the behavior of storms, said on its website.
The storm was churning westward at 14 miles (23 kilometers) per hour but was expected to slow its forward progress and track to the northwest in coming days as it gains strength.
No land masses were under immediate threat, and by the weekend Fred was expected to have weakened considerably and still be in the middle of the Atlantic.
This year's Atlantic hurricane season, which began on June 1 and ends November 30, has seen a handful of tropical storms but just a single major one, Hurricane Bill, which grazed the US east coast and eastern Canada last month.
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