Tropical Storm Noel strengthens, threatens Haiti

By Michael Christie

MIAMI (Reuters) - Tropical Storm Noel strengthened on Sunday as it crept over the Caribbean and threatened to lash impoverished Haiti with potentially deadly rains, U.S. forecasters said.

The storm, with top sustained winds of 60 miles per hour (95 km per hour), was moving slowly toward Haiti's southwestern peninsula and was expected to head toward southeastern Cuba, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said.

While the storm's track was highly uncertain, the hurricane center forecast it was likely to curve back to the northeast near the end of the week and head out over the Bahamas into the Atlantic rather than into the Gulf of Mexico and its important U.S. oil and gas facilities.

It was also unclear whether Noel, the 14th named storm of the 2007 Atlantic hurricane season, would have an opportunity to strengthen into a hurricane with winds of at least 74 mph (119 kph) because that would depend on whether it stayed over warm water or spent more time over land.

"The amount of interaction with land during the next 2-3 days is still rather uncertain, but the official intensity forecast indicates strengthening since the cyclone will be mostly over water if the official track forecast verifies," hurricane center forecaster Richard Knabb wrote in a discussion piece on the storm.

"It is not out of the question that Noel could become a hurricane prior to passing over Cuba."

By 5 p.m. EDT (2100 GMT), Noel was located around 125 miles

south-southeast of the Haitian capital Port-au-Prince and was moving to the north-northwest at 5 mph (8 kph), the Miami-based hurricane center said.