Tropical Storm Ophelia is gaining strength and is just 4 mph from becoming a hurricane, forecasters said Wednesday.
Oct. 11 (UPI) — Tropical Storm Ophelia is gaining strength and is just 4 mph from becoming a hurricane, forecasters said Wednesday.
The storm is located in the central Atlantic Ocean about 775 miles southwest of the Azores, the National Hurricane Center said in its 11 a.m. update. It has maximum sustained winds of 70 mph — an increase of 10 mph from its update six hours earlier — and is traveling southeast at 3 mph.
Storms become hurricanes when they reach 74 mph. Currently, Ophelia is not expected to make landfall anywhere.
„If I only had conventional satellite imagery, I would definitely estimate that Ophelia was a hurricane,“ NHC forecaster Lixion Avila said. „Several ASCAT passes during the past day or so indicate that the winds have been lower than the winds one could assign the cyclone by using Dvorak.“
„Since we do not have a hurricane hunter plane to give us exact measurements, we need to compromise between the very valuable satellite-based estimates,“ Avila added
The NHC said Ophelia is expected to become a hurricane either late Wednesday or early Thursday.
Ophelia would become the 10th consecutive storm to become a hurricane this year. If that happens, officials say it would tie a record set in the late 1880s.
Ophalia is presently the only storm the NHC is tracking in the Atlantic or Pacific.
