Tropical storm Ernesto nears Barbados

MIAMI: Tropical storm Ernesto, the fifth of the Atlantic hurricane season, threatened Barbados and the Windward Islands Friday as it advanced across the Atlantic with winds of 85 kilometers per hour.

At 0300 GMT, the storm's center was 130 kilometers (80 miles) east of Barbados and 295 kilometers (185 miles) east of St Lucia, the Miami-based National Hurricane Center said.

"The center of Ernesto should pass near Barbados later tonight, be near the northern Windward Islands by early Friday and emerge over the eastern Caribbean sea by Friday afternoon," the center said.

It said tropical storm warnings were up in Barbados, St Vincent and the Grenadines, Dominica, St Lucia, Martinique and Guadeloupe.

Ernesto formed on Thursday from a tropical depression, becoming the fifth tropical storm of the current hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30.

The storm was expected to strengthen somewhat over the next two days, the center said.

US weather forecasters have said they expect this to be a relatively mild hurricane season, with nine to 15 topical storms and between four and eight hurricanes.