Florence becomes hurricane

For now, landfall not in the forecast

FLORENCE INFORMATION 5:00 p.m. EDT Tuesday POSITION: 30.8 north latitude 73.5 west longitude 330 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina MOVEMENT: Northwest at 3mph WIND SPEED: 75 mph   RESOURCES CNN - Storm Center     STORM WATCH E-MAIL Sign up for CNN.com's U.S. Storm Watch E-mail.     MESSAGE BOARD Nature's wrath

MIAMI, Florida (CNN) -- Spinning in place between Bermuda and the North Carolina coast, Tropical Storm Florence became Hurricane Florence Tuesday afternoon. The system is not expected to pose any threat to the continental United States through Friday, the outer limit of the forecast by the National Hurricane Center in Miami.

At 5 p.m. EDT, Florence's center was about 330 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina (or, about 530 miles west of Bermuda), near latitude 30.8 north and longitude 73.5 west, according to the Hurricane Center.

Florence's winds reached 75 mph, the minimum for a hurricane, Tuesday afternoon. The storm is moving towards the northwest at near 3 mph. Forecasters expect Florence's motion to be slow and erratic over the next 24 hours. A small increase in strength is possible over the next 24 hours.

Forecasters said the storm's movement is being blocked by high pressure overhead, but in a few days a low pressure trough with west-southwesterly winds was expected to push Florence far away from land.

Nevertheless, forecasters said boaters should keep an eye on the system, which is expected to produce heavy surf and rip currents along the Southeast U.S. coast and Bermuda.

Tropical storms form and are given names when maximum sustained winds reach 39 mph and become hurricanes when top winds hit 74 mph.

Florence is the sixth named storm of the Atlantic hurricane season. So far none has hit the U.S. mainland, and Caribbean islands have suffered only minimal effects.

Tropical Storm Florence forms, builds strength in Atlantic
September 11, 2000

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