Hanna strengthens

Forecasters are predicting that Tropical Storm Hanna, which formed last week, could become a hurricane by Thursday somewhere off the Central Florida coast.



They say Hanna, the eighth named storm of the 2008 Atlantic hurricane season, intensified briefly, but then its maximum winds pulled back to 45 miles per hour yesterday, as it moved northwest past Turks and Caicos Islands toward the Bahamas.



Some forecasting models show the storm moving north toward the Carolinas late in the week, while others point it southwest toward Cuba.



The national hurricane center forecasters said they are continuing to monitor a cluster of thunderstorms off the west coast of Africa that has a high probability of forming into a tropical depression.