Hurricane Bertha strengthens again in Atlantic

By Michael Christie

MIAMI (Reuters) - Hurricane Bertha strengthened again into a Category 2 storm on Wednesday as it inched closer to Bermuda, but it remained uncertain whether the hurricane would actually strike the British mid-Atlantic colony, U.S. forecasters said.

The first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season surprised forecasters with the speed and vigor at which it strengthened into a "major" Category 3 hurricane on Monday, only to almost fizzle back into a tropical storm on Tuesday.

But warm waters and more favorable atmospheric wind conditions allowed the storm to once again gain traction and reach the second level on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of hurricane intensity, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

"Additional strengthening is forecast during the next 24 hours and Bertha could again become a major hurricane," the Miami-based center said in an advisory.

Hurricanes of Category 3 and above are called "major" hurricanes and are the strongest and most destructive. Hurricane Katrina, which devastated New Orleans in 2005, was a monstrous Category 5 storm in the Gulf of Mexico before coming ashore as a Category 3.

Hurricane Bertha's top sustained winds had reached 105 miles per hour by 5 p.m. EDT, the hurricane center said.

The storm was around 600 miles southeast of Bermuda, a wealthy finance center whose 66,000 people are regarded as among the most storm-conscious and whose building codes rank among the strictest in the region.

It was moving northwest near 12 mph and was expected to slow down and turn north on a course that would take it well to the east of Bermuda. Bermuda, though, still needed to keep an eye on Bertha, the hurricane center said.