HYANNIS, Mass., (Reuters) – A weakened but still dangerous Hurricane Earl churned toward the Massachusetts coast yesterday, en route to Canada’s Maritime provinces, after slapping North Carolina with heavy wind and rain but causing less damage than feared.
Earl was downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane with sustained winds down to 75 mph (120 kph) as it swirled up the eastern seaboard.
The storm is not forecast to make U.S. landfall, but to pass very near or just east of (Massachusetts’) Cape Cod last night and on the coast of Nova Scotia yesterday, the National Hurricane Center said.
“Earl continues to slowly weaken,” the National Hurricane Center said in its latest update. Rain and wind from the outer bands of the storm are spreading over New York’s Long Island area and southeastern New England, it said.
The center warned that Earl — though no longer packing the power of its former ranking as a fearsome Category 4 storm on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale — remained a threat.
People from the U.S. mid-Atlantic states to Canada’s Maritimes braced for impact, while coastal residents further south breathed a sigh of relief.
“For the most part, it appears we have dodged a bullet,” North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue said.
Minimal damage was reported other than beach erosion from fierce waves on North Carolina’s Outer Banks low-lying barrier islands. Flooding up to 3 feet (1 meter) was reported in at least one island village, along with scattered power outages.
