WASHINGTON, Sept. 17 (Xinhua) -- Tropical Storm Maria is expected to become a hurricane Sunday as it heads toward Caribbean islands battered by Hurricane Irma earlier this month, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said Sunday.
Maria was centered about 655 km east-southeast of the Lesser Antilles and was moving west-northwest at 24 km per hour, with maximum sustained winds of 100 km per hour, according to an advisory Sunday morning.
On the forecast track, the center of Maria will be near the Leeward Islands, northeast Caribbean Sea, Monday night and is expected to hit islands devastated by Irma as a Category-5 hurricane, including St. Martin, St. Barts and Antigua and Barbuda.
Forecasters said Maria will likely become a major Category-3 storm by midweek as it approaches Lesser Antilles and the Virgin Islands before moving to Puerto Rico, the Dominican Republic and Haiti at a similar strength.
It's still early to predict Maria's influence over southern United States or its coastline but some models showed the storm will move toward the southeastern U.S. state of Florida and up the east coast.
Meanwhile, forecasters are also watching Hurricane Jose and Tropical Storm Lee.
Jose, a long-lived hurricane, was churning its way north through the Atlantic Ocean Sunday morning as a Category-1 storm, with maximum sustained winds of 130 km per hour.
It was not expected to make landfall but its proximity to land will likely bring large and destructive waves, dangerous rip currents, beach erosion, heavy rainfall and wind Tuesday and Wednesday.
Lee, located nearly 1,300 km west-southwest of the Cabo Verde Islands, is projected to weaken to a tropical depression by Tuesday as it poses no threat to land.
