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Fred Attains Major Hurricane Status.. Expected to Weaken - 09-09-2009
MIAMI, Florida (Reuters) — Hurricane Fred strengthened into a powerful Category 3 storm in the eastern Atlantic Ocean Wednesday but its newfound intensity was expected to be short-lived and it posed no threat to any land.
Fred's sustained winds whipped up to 120 mph, making it the second "major" hurricane — Category 3 or higher on the five-step Saffir-Simpson intensity scale — of the 2009 Atlantic season, the National Hurricane Center said.
"It is quite unusual to have such a powerful system so far east in the (Atlantic) basin," the hurricane center said in a statement. "Fred is only the third major hurricane noted east of 35 (degrees west longitude) in the tropical Atlantic Ocean and the strongest hurricane so far south and east in our data record."
Fred was thousands of miles east of the populous U.S. East Coast and the Gulf of Mexico oil and gas production areas and was expected to fade to a tropical storm within three days, forecasters said.
At 11 a.m. ET, the storm was about 540 miles west of the southernmost Cape Verde Islands and was moving toward the northwest at about 13 mph, the hurricane center said.
Fred was expected to begin weakening on Thursday and to turn toward the north in the next couple of days, forecasters said. It was expected to fizzle to a tropical depression by Sunday.
The forecast track would keep it in the eastern Atlantic, far from the Gulf of Mexico, where U.S. oil and gas operations are clustered.
Major hurricanes of Category 3 or higher are the most destructive type. Many of the leading seasonal hurricane forecasters had predicted the six-month Atlantic season, which runs until Nov. 30, would be relatively mild compared to recent years, and would see only two major hurricanes.
In addition to Fred, Bill was a major hurricane, reaching Category 4 in mid-ocean before weakening as it hit Canada's Atlantic provinces last month.
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