Tropical Storm Florence headed for Bermuda as a lopsided blob of gusty rain on Friday but seemed ready to strengthen into a hurricane before hitting the British territory, U.S. forecasters said.
Bermuda was expected to issue hurricane warnings by nightfall, alerting the mid-Atlantic island's 65,000 residents to expect storm conditions in the next day or two.
Florence is the sixth tropical storm of the Atlantic hurricane season, poorly organized and unusually wide.
Its center was about 730 miles (1,175 km) south-southeast of Bermuda. Florence was moving west-northwest near 17 mph (28 kph) but was so large that Bermuda residents would likely feel the outer edges of the storm a day or two before the center arrived on Monday, forecasters at the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
Florence's top sustained winds have held steady at about 50 mph (80 kph) for several days but the forecasters said those winds could reach the 74 mph (119 kph) threshold to become a hurricane by Sunday.
Computer tracking models projected the storm would pass over Bermuda and turn northeast, moving away from the United States and into a part of the open Atlantic where shearing winds and cooler waters would sap its strength.
But the storm was so big that it was expected to kick up heavy surf and dangerous rip tides all along the U.S. eastern seaboard during the weekend, forecasters said.
The six-month hurricane season that began on June 1 has produced only one hurricane so far. Tropical Storm Ernesto briefly reached hurricane strength near Haiti last month but weakened before drenching the U.S. East Coast.
(Reuters)
