Tropical Storm Fred is located about 345 miles southwest of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands at 1500 UTC, 08 Sep 2009Weather forecasters say Hurricane Fred gained strength Wednesday, making it the second major hurricane of the year, although it posed no threat to land.

The National Hurricane Center in Miami says Fred is now a Category Three hurricane on the five-level scale that measures a hurricane's intensity and potential destructiveness.

At last report, the storm was moving over the eastern Atlantic Ocean with winds near 195 kilometers an hour. It was hundreds of kilometers west of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands. Forecasters say Fred will weaken beginning Thursday.

Meanwhile, over the Pacific Ocean, Tropical Storm Linda continues to drift slowly, moving northwest at 13 kilometers per hour. The storm had winds of up to 100 kilometers per hour and was spinning more than 2,000 kilometers west of the southern tip of Mexico's Baja California peninsula.

Some information for this report was provided by AFP, AP and Reuters.