By Jennifer Kay
Miami - Tropical Storm Florence formed far out in the open Atlantic, but forecasters said Wednesday it was too soon to tell if the sixth named storm of the hurricane season would reach the United States.
Florence had sustained winds near 72km/h, just over the 62km/h threshold for a tropical storm. The minimum for a hurricane is 119km/h.
It was not expected to become a hurricane Wednesday, forecaster Jack Beven said.
"But several days down the road it could very well strengthen into a hurricane," he said. "It's not any immediate threat to anywhere in the United States."
Earlier forecasts predicted the storm could become a minimal hurricane by Friday morning.
Continues Below ↓
At 09h00GMT, the storm was centred 1 359km east of the Northern Leeward Islands, or about 3 194km east-southeast of Miami, and was moving west-northwest at about 21km/h.
Tropical storm force winds extended 233km from its centre.
"Although Florence continues to get better organised, it remains an unusually large Atlantic tropical storm, and large cyclones tend to take longer to develop and intensify than smaller ones do," said hurricane specialist Stacy Stewart.
Florence follows on the heels of Tropical Storm Ernesto, which formed August 25 over the southern Caribbean and was briefly the season's first hurricane before weakening and hitting Florida and North Carolina last week as a tropical storm.
At least nine deaths in the United States were blamed on Ernesto, which also killed two people in Haiti, delayed the launch of the space shuttle Atlantis and blacked out thousands of homes and businesses from North Carolina to New York state.
Florence developed in the peak of hurricane season in warm Atlantic waters, the source of energy for storm development this time of year, said Mark Willis, a meteorologist at the hurricane centre.
"It's nothing like we saw last year, but the waters are still warm enough to favour tropical storms and hurricanes and intensification," Willis said.
Last year's Atlantic storm season had a record 28 named storms and 15 hurricanes, including Katrina.
The 2006 Atlantic hurricane season has not been as rough as initially feared. The National Hurricane Center lowered its forecast in August to between 12 and 15 named storms and seven to nine hurricanes.
On the Net: Hurricane Center: http://www.nhc.noaa.gov - Sapa-AP
|
StumbleUpon
Reddit
Digg
Delicious
Newsvine
Facebook
muti
Twitter
