MIAMI (AP) – Tropical Storm Franklin strengthened as it spun away from the Bahamas on Saturday and moved farther east in the Atlantic, but blasts of warm air from its core were expected to bring extreme heat to the Florida peninsula.

Heat index readings along Florida’s Atlantic coast could exceed 110 degrees during the weekend, even with Franklin’s 70-mile-per-hour wind and strong rain not forecast to affect land.

It was expected to continue strengthening into today; it would be classified as a hurricane if wind speed increases to at least 74 miles per hour.

At 11 a.m. Saturday, the storm’s center was about 245 miles north-northeast of Great Abaco Island, and nearly 635 miles west-southwest of Bermuda, moving northeast at 9 miles per hour.

The system was no major threat to any land mass, and the National Hurricane Center in Miami said Franklin may lose its tropical characteristics by early next week.

“It is quite possible that little or nothing will be left of Franklin…in two to three days,” hurricane specialist James Franklin said Saturday.

Meanwhile, a tropical wave was bringing locally heavy rains to parts of the Yucatan Peninsula and Honduras, Belize and Guatemala on Saturday.

Winds of nearly 35 mph were measured in some areas, just shy of the 39-mph threshold for tropical-storm status.

The wave is moving west-northwest, on a path toward the southwestern Gulf of Mexico. Forecasters said conditions are favorable for a tropical depression – or possibly a tropical storm, which would be named Gert – to develop.

Franklin is the earliest sixth named storm on record for the Atlantic hurricane season, which began June 1.

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On the Web:

National Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/

AP-ES-07-23-05 1112EDT