Caribbean -- will pose a threat to Bermuda, forecasters said yesterday.

The storm's closest point to Bermuda is expected to be at 3 p.m. on Sunday when it is expected to pass more than 1,000 miles to the south, too far to influence local weather, the US Naval Oceanography Command Facility said.

Bret, which formed in the mid-Atlantic on Wednesday, is expected to reach hurricane strength in the next few days.

It could hit the Lesser Antilles islands as early as Saturday morning, the National Hurricane Centre in Coral Gables, Florida said.

Forecasters at the centre could not say yet where Bret might go after it enters the eastern Caribbean, but it would probably continue on a westerly or west-northwesterly track.

That would take the storm toward or south of Jamaica, Haiti and Cuba and into the southern Gulf of Mexico.

Speeding west at 22 mph, the storm was 650 miles east of the Lesser Antilles with sustained winds of about 50 mph.

The Lesser Antilles declared a tropical storm watch from Dominica south to Trinidad effective 6 p.m. on Thursday.

Bret is the second storm of the 1993 Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1 and ends November 30.

The first storm, Arlene, formed in June in the Gulf and soaked the Texas coast, but did little damage.