Tropical Storm Chris, the third named storm of the season, was expected to become a hurricane off the Carolinas by Monday, the National Hurricane Center said.
The storm continued to strengthen Sunday, but stagnated nearly 180 miles the coast of south of Cape Hatteras, N.C., according to the hurricane center. The storm's maximum sustained winds were 50 mph. Forecasters expected Chris to strengthen.
Chris will likely remain off the coast of the Carolinas for the next two or three days before heading toward the Northeast on Tuesday, according to the advisory.
It was not expected to pose a threat to the United States, but the storm could impact the east coast of Canada, according to the official weather agencies in both countries.
The Miami-based National Hurricane Center's forecast put the Canadian provinces of Nova Scotia and Newfoundland in the probable path of the storm.
The National Hurricane Center was projecting that Chris would approach the Atlantic Ocean waters off Nova Scotia by 2 a.m. Thursday. The likely path as of Sunday kept the center of the storm several hundred miles of the Nova Scotia coastline, but a portion of the so-called cone, which estimates a storm's probable path, left open the possibility that Chris could make a direct hit on Nova Scotia.
That same cone had Chris or its remnants passing over Newfoundland by 2 a.m. Friday as a post-tropical storm.
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(Brett Clarkson and Aric Chokey contributed to this report.)
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