Hurricane Earl on its way to New England
As of 2pm east coast time Hurricane Earl was a couple of hundred miles off the coast of North Carolina. Its max sustained winds are around 125, which puts Earl in Category 3 status. While it has been moving westward for most of its life, it has begun to move north at 18 miles per hour. This means that it will not be in Asheville (though I never expected it to be, being 400 miles from the coast). While landfall is not expected, the western swath of the storm is projected to affect much of the Northeast:
Currently there are Hurricane Warnings for the North Carolina coast, as the storm will be passing by overnight tonight. Another concern could be a near landfall off of Cape Cod tomorrow night into Saturday morning. Because of that the Massachusetts coast, as well as Nantucket/Marthas Vineyard, is ALSO under a Hurricane warning.
Again, while landfall is not expected, it should still pack a punch, with winds up to 7o mph for some coastal areas and high seas. Even though the storm is expected to weaken (in fact it already has, being downgraded from a category 4 to category 3 at the 2pm discussion), it can still do some minor damage so be careful up there.
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You might say “landfall is not expected on the mainland” because the track takes it directly over Nantucket and Martha’s Vineyard