SAN JUAN, Puerto Rico (AP) _ Tropical Storm Isaac strengthened slightly as it spun toward the Dominican Republic and Haiti, but seemed unlikely to gain enough steam early Friday to strike the island of Hispaniola as a hurricane.
A forecaster with the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami says it looks likely Isaac won’t become a hurricane until it enters the Gulf of Mexico.
The latest five-day forecast shows the storm’s path shifting to the west, possibly making landfall near the Alabama-Mississippi border.
But the forecaster says it’s too early to know the exact course and stressed that Florida’s Gulf Coast, including Tampa, the site of next week’s Republican National Convention,
was still in the forecast cone.
Organizers of next week’s Republican National Convention in Tampa are working closely with state and federal authorities on monitoring the storm as they prepare for the arrival of 70,000 delegates, journalists and protesters.