Tropical Storm Lee, still far away from the Caribbean in the Atlantic Ocean, formed Tuesday and is forecast to become a major hurricane by the end of this week, officials said.
The storm was 1,230 miles east of the Lesser Antilles late Tuesday, according to the National Hurricane Center.
It had been a tropical depression earlier in the day but later strengthened to tropical storm status.
The storm is forecast to strengthen further, and quickly, according to the hurricane center.
It is “expected to rapidly intensify into an extremely dangerous hurricane by the weekend,” the agency said in an update at 11 p.m.
The storm could impact the Leeward Islands by the weekend, but “it is too soon to determine the location and magnitude of these impacts,” the hurricane center said.
A “major hurricane” is a storm of Category 3 or greater on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale.