Hurricane Maria Moves Away From North Carolina
The National Hurricane Center (NHC) announced that Maria once again regained its strength on Wednesday, but the weather disturbance might spare North Carolina from its wrath.
NHC revealed that the large storm that ransacked Puerto Rico and Dominica in mid-September is currently moving away from the US East Coast. This led the agency to drop all the tropical storm and storm surge warnings in that part of the country. However, reports claimed that high surf and rip currents will continue to persist in areas up to the northern New England and Newfoundland in the coming days.
As of 11 p.m. EDT, the NHC announced that Maria is headed out to sea after brushing some parts of North Carolina. It is located approximately 250 miles East North East of the state's Cape Hatteras islands with maximum stained winds of 75 miles per hour. It is reportedly moving in a North East direction at 7 miles per hour.
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According to a report from ABC News, Cape Hatteras had a fine rainy weather with areas of blue sky showing occasionally. The local police opened a checkpoint to block all traffic coming to the island except for the residents and authorized reporters.
Previous weather advisory predicted that Maria could erode more than half of the sand dunes in North Carolina's 300 mile-coast. The report also claimed that the beaches located in Maryland and Virginia might even experience worse conditions since about two-thirds of the dunes could erode due to Maria's effect.
While Maria is slowly moving away from the US territory, another hurricane dubbed as Lee has been spotted Wednesday at approximately 460 miles East Southeast of Bermuda as of 5 p.m. EDT. The Category 3 hurricane is reportedly moving north-northwest at eight miles per hour. However, the new weather disturbance that is considered as the fifth major hurricane in the Atlantic for this year is no threat to land and is expected to weaken on Thursday.
