New storm threatens eastern Florida

MIAMI - Tropical storm warnings were posted for Florida's central Atlantic coast today as a new cyclone formed and threatened to hit the state as a weak hurricane by the weekend.

The system was still an unnamed tropical depression, a loose swirling mass of thunderstorms, but was expected to strengthen into Tropical Storm Ophelia over the northwestern Bahamas in the next 24 hours.

Forecasters said it looked unlikely to follow the path of Hurricane Katrina, which swept across southeast Florida and into the Gulf of Mexico, then burgeoned into a monster hurricane that devastated New Orleans and the northern Gulf region last week.

"It looks like it's going to impact a little bit further north than Katrina did," said Jennifer Pralgo, a meteorologist at the National Hurricane Centre.

The centre's extended forecast had it coming ashore in northeast Florida on Friday and dissipating over Georgia without getting anywhere near the Gulf of Mexico.
Tropical storm warnings were issued for the northwest Bahamas and for Florida's east coast from Jupiter to Titusville, a 210km stretch that included the Kennedy Space Centre.

NASA was preparing to move a giant shuttle fuel tank off a barge and into a hangar for safekeeping. The agency planned to send it to Louisiana for modifications at a manufacturing plant near New Orleans, but the facility was shut down because of damage from Katrina.

It was expected to turn north-northwest and strengthen into a strong tropical storm or possibly a weak hurricane, with winds of at least 95km/h, Pralgo said.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Nate strengthened as it inched toward Bermuda. It had top winds of 95km/h and was expected to become a hurricane and hit the British colony of 65,000 people on Friday.

Nate was centred 440km south-southwest of Bermuda and nearly stationary but was expected to loop to the northeast over the island.

Farther north, Hurricane Maria was a concern to Atlantic shipping interests but did not threaten land.

It was about 930km east-northeast of Bermuda, where chillier waters were sapping its strength.

Its top winds dropped to 130km/h on Tuesday.

The trio of storms was hardly unusual for this time of year. Late August and early September are traditionally the busiest part of the Atlantic-Caribbean hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.

- REUTERS