Tropical Storm Bertha To Become A Hurricane Today

This graphic shows an approximate representation of coastal areas under a hurricane warning (red), hurricane watch (pink), tropical storm warning (blue) and tropical storm watch (yellow). The orange circle indicates the current position of the center of the tropical cyclone. (NHC image)

News Americas, MIAMI, FL, Mon. Aug. 4, 2014: Tropical Storm Bertha is forecast to become a hurricane by today or late tonight, August 4th, forecasters at the National Hurricane Center said last night.

At 11 p.m. last night, the center of the storm was on track to increase in strength and pass east of the central and northwestern Bahamas.

Data from a U.S. air force reserve hurricane hunter aircraft indicated that the maximum sustained winds have increased to near 65 mph.  with higher gusts and additional strengthening expected during the next 48 hours.

Bertha is forecast to become a hurricane today or tonight. The storm is expected to produce rainfall amounts of 1 to 3 inches with isolated amounts of up to 5 inches across the Turks And Caicos through Monday.