JACKSONVILLE, Fla. -- Hurricane Bill is getting stronger as it spins far out in the Atlantic and forecasters say it will become a major hurricane within the next day or so.

As of Tuesday evening, it was a Category 2 hurricane with winds near 110 mph. It was about 635 miles east of the Leeward Islands and moving west-northwest near 16 mph.

The National Hurricane Center said people in the Leeward Islands should monitor Bill's progress, as its upgraded forecast called for the storm to become a Category 4 storm within the next 24 to 48 hours.

"Bill is getting very, very big," Channel 4's chief meteorologist John Gaughan said Tuesday at 5 p.m. "But high pressure will protect us, keeping it about 750 miles off our coast. The surfers out there will be loving this."

Meanwhile, it appeared that Ana, the first named storm of the Atlantic season, had mostly spared people in flood-prone Haiti and the Dominican Republic.

The system had been downgraded to a tropical depression and then largely dissipated by the time it got to the islands, but its rains were still considered a potential threat.

"The rain fell but it did not hit anywhere very hard," said Marie Alta Jean-Baptiste, director of Haiti's civil protection department.

The two countries that share the island of Hispaniola are vulnerable to storms, with many impoverished people clustered along rivers, but there were no reports of major damage.

"The remains of Ana ... have merged with a tropical wave," wrote Channel 4 meteorologist emeritus George Winterling on his Hurricane Watch Blog . "This activity will pass over southern Florida and western Cuba by Thursday. We will be watching the tropical wave as it reaches parts of the Gulf waters off Florida’s west coast between now and the weekend."