News
Hurricane Earl could take aim at Carolinas by Friday
By: cnn.comPosted On: 08/31/2010 1:45 P
Hurricane Earl may still prompt evacuations along the U.S. Atlantic coast even if it does not make landfall, since it may come close enough to trigger storm surge flooding and high winds, officials said Tuesday.
"We do not have a forecasted landfall, but this is a very large system," Craig Fugate, Federal Emergency Management Agency administrator, told reporters on a conference call. "We do expect impacts along the coast."
Local officials may have a limited window in which to issue evacuations, taking into effect the forecasted winds, the proximity of Earl to the coast and the time evacuations are expected to take, he said. "The primary threat here is going to be storm surge."
Earl, which quickly morphed into a Category 4 hurricane on Monday, dealt a glancing blow to Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands on Monday, downing trees and knocking out power to hundreds of thousands. Earl on Tuesday was churning toward the Turks and Caicos and the southeastern Bahamas, which were forecast to experience tropical storm conditions on Tuesday afternoon.
After that, tracking maps show Earl turning northwest, putting the Outer Banks of North Carolina in its cone of uncertainty for late Thursday or early Friday. Earl is forecast to be a Category 3 storm by then -- still a major hurricane. A five-day tracking map show Earl could near Cape Cod, Massachusetts, as a Category 2 storm on Saturday.
"It's a really tough call, because we're talking 100 miles away from the coastline" and it's too soon to provide a definitive forecast track for Earl, CNN meteorologist Jacqui Jeras said. But, she said, "even without a direct hit, we're going to have some nasty conditions."
As of 11 a.m. ET, the center of Earl was about 205 miles (335 kilometers) east of Grand Turk Island and about 1,070 miles (1,725 kilometers) south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, according to the National Hurricane Center. It was heading west-northwest at about 14 mph (22 kph).
Earl's maximum sustained winds are at 135 mph (215 kph). It is a large storm, with hurricane-force winds stretching 70 miles (110 km) from its center and tropical storm-force winds extending outward some 200 miles (325 kilometers).
"Some fluctuations in intensity are likely, but Earl is forecast to retain Category 4 status for the next day or two," the Hurricane Center said.
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