Story highlights Jose regained hurricane strength on Friday

The storm could bring rain and winds to the Northeast next week

(CNN) Tropical Storm Jose has strengthened back into a hurricane, according to the National Hurricane Center.

The storm, which could bring rain and wind to the northeastern United States later this week. It had maximum sustained winds of nearly 80 mph and was 550 miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, early Saturday, according to the hurricane center.

Jose remains out in the Atlantic Ocean and is moving toward the northwest, and that motion will bring it closer to the United States through the weekend. Just how far it moves west before turning to the north will tell forecasters a great deal about the likelihood of whether it will make landfall somewhere along the eastern US coastline.

The National Hurricane Center has included parts of the United States, from New Jersey up to New England, in its "cone of uncertainty," which shows the probable track of the center of a storm over a five-day period. The cone includes the New Jersey coastline, Long Island, most of Connecticut and Massachusetts and all of Rhode Island.

A majority of the models keep the center of the storm over the ocean, including the major global models the GFS -- the American forecast model -- and the ECMWF -- the European one.

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