Ophelia strengthens into hurricane off Florida

MIAMI - Tropical Storm Ophelia strengthened into a hurricane as it sat off Florida's Atlantic Coast on Thursday and forecasters said that if it ever moved, it would be in circles.

Ophelia had top winds of 120km/h, up from 80km/h a day earlier and just over the 118km/h threshold for hurricane status, the National Hurricane Center said.

At 5pm, Ophelia's centre was about 112km east-northeast of Cape Canaveral, Florida.

It had barely moved in two days and was expected to begin drifting northeast on Friday, initially edging away from the US coast.

But Ophelia was expected to circle back to the west toward the United States next week, potentially striking anywhere from Florida to North Carolina.

Tropical storm warnings, alerting residents that the outer edges of the hurricane could hit them within 24 hours, were posted for a 190-km stretch of Florida's Atlantic coast from Sebastian Inlet to Flagler Beach.

Forecasters said Ophelia could dump 2.5 to 13cm of rain on parts of central and north Florida and southeast Georgia, and trigger dangerous rip tides all along the southeastern coast of the United States.

Some of Ophelia's outer squalls lashed northeast Florida on Thursday. The storm churned up waves that pummelled swimmers and ate away at beaches already eroded by some of the six hurricanes that have crisscrossed the state in the last 13 months.

"These are three to four metre waves. They can literally pile-drive you into the bottom," said Scott Petersohn, spokesman for the Volusia County Beach Patrol in Daytona Beach.

"The longer it sits nearly stationary, the more problems it's going to cause in the long run."

- REUTERS