FORT LAUDERDALE, Fla. _ Hurricane Florence is bearing down on the East Coast, with tropical storm-force winds moving onshore of the Outer Banks of North Carolina as of the National Hurricane Center's 8 a.m. Thursday advisory.
As those outer bands reach land, the Category 2 hurricane is about 170 miles from Wilmington, N.C. and 220 miles off Myrtle Beach, S.C. Landfall is expected Friday afternoon somewhere in North Carolina.
Although Florence's winds have slightly simmered down, with top measuring 110 mph, the storm is still expected to bring historic deluges of rain, storm surge and flooding.
"The inner-core and outer fields have continued to expand, resulting in an increase in the cyclone's total energy," said Stacy Stewart, a hurricane specialist at the national center in Miami.
The storm's expansive wind field is generating hurricane-strength winds, gusts of at least 74 mph, radiating 80 miles from the core. Tropical storm winds, which mean winds of at least 39 mph, stretch out up to 195 miles from the eye, making the tropical wind field a potential 400 or so miles wide.
Florence is the most dangerous of four tropical systems in the Atlantic. This is the first time in a decade that the Atlantic Ocean has seen four named storms at the same time.
Here are updates on the others:
TROPICAL STORM ISAAC
With top winds measuring 45 mph, Isaac, facing storm-hampering wind shear, is expected to weaken further as it moves west toward the Caribbean and could soon possibly degenerate into a tropical wave, according to the National Hurricane Center's analysis Thursday morning. There is some suggestion from forecast models that Isaac has the potential to reform as it heads west, but this is uncertain.
"Some of the dynamical models suggest that regeneration could occur in the western Caribbean, however the predictability of such an event is too low to explicitly show in the forecast at this point," the hurricane center's analysis said.
Isaac is expected to move into the eastern Caribbean Sea later Thursday, and then move across the eastern and central Caribbean Sea through the weekend.
HURRICANE HELENE
Far out in the Atlantic, Category 1 Helene's winds had weakened to 75 mph by 5 a.m. Thursday, and it is expected to weaken to a tropical storm by Thursday night.
SUB-TROPICAL STORM JOYCE
Say "hello" to sub-tropical storm Joyce which was upgraded from a depression Wednesday evening. Way out in the north Atlantic Ocean, Joyce had winds kicking up to 45 mph and was steaming along at 6 mph. Joyce could become a tropical storm "within the next day or so," the National Hurricane Center says.
POTENTIAL DEPRESSION IN GULF
One, in the southern Gulf of Mexico, is likely to become a tropical depression by Thursday night and is projected to aim toward the Gulf coasts of northeastern Mexico and southeastern Texas.
