The hurricane reached Category 2 status on the Saffir-Simpson 1-to-5 scale, and with additional strengthening forecast, "Danielle could become a major (Category 3) hurricane by early Wednesday," the US National Hurricane Center reported in an advisory.

Danielle was churning westward at about 20 miles per hour, and was some 1,100 miles east of the Lesser Antilles shortly before 0900 GMT, the NHC said. There were no current threats to land.

The hurricane was forecast to turn to the northwest by Wednesday, passing east of Bermuda at the weekend but still potentially threatening the island chain.

Meteorological models show the cyclone missing the US East Coast, but possibly threatening the Canadian coast to the north by next week.

Experts are also keeping an eye on a second weather system behind Danielle -- a well-organized tropical depression south of the Cape Verde islands which the NHC says has a 70 percent chance of forming a tropical cyclone.

The first hurricane of the Atlantic season was Alex, which left one person dead in northern Mexico and disrupted oil clean up efforts in the Gulf of Mexico before being downgraded to a tropical storm June 30.

Forecasters are also tracking Tropical Storm Frank, a Pacific storm expected to bring high winds and rains to Mexico's western coast.

At 0900 GMT the weather system was some 130 miles southwest of Acapulco, packing winds of 50 miles per hour.

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