(Reuters) - Tropical storm Irma has strengthened over the Atlantic and is expected to become a hurricane by Thursday, the U.S. National Hurricane Center (NHC) said in its latest advisory on Wednesday.
The storm is about 545 miles (875 km) west of the Cape Verde Islands, packing maximum sustained winds of 65 miles per hour (100 km per hour), the NHC said. Irma was moving west at about 12 mph (19 kph), it said.
"There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect," the Miami-based weather forecaster added.
(Reporting by Eileen Soreng and Arpan Varghese in Bengaluru; Editing by David Gregorio and Christian Schmollinger)
