Hurricane Katia intensifies over open Atlantic

MIAMI, (Reuters) – Hurricane Katia intensified over  the open Atlantic today, bulking up to a powerful Category  2 storm, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.
The Miami-based hurricane center said it was still too soon  to gauge the potential threat to land or to the U.S. East Coast  from the storm, but cautioned that it was well worth keeping an  eye on Katia due to a westward shift in its track over warm  seas.
“It would be a good idea for people on the (U.S.) East  Coast just to keep watching this storm,” said Robbie Berg, an  NHC hurricane specialist.
“There is so much uncertainty in this forecast, it’s really  too early to say what kind of impacts we might see,” Berg told  Reuters.
At 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT), Katia had top sustained winds of  100 miles per hour (160 km per hour) and was located about 360  miles (580 km) northeast of the northern Leeward Islands, the  NHC said.
It said Katia could become a “major” hurricane by Monday,  with maximum sustained winds of at least 111 mph (178 kph).
Uncertainty over the storm’s track was partly due to  Tropical Storm Lee over the Gulf of Mexico and the effect it  could have on Katia’s circulation later this week, Berg said.
Hurricane expert Jeff Masters said Katia posed no immediate  danger to any land areas but stressed that it could definitely  threaten the U.S. coast late this week.
“It’s likely that locations on the U.S. coast south of  North Carolina will not receive a direct hit from Katia, but  the entire coast from North Carolina northwards to New England  and Canada’s Maritime Provinces is definitely at risk,” Masters  wrote in his Weather Underground blog.