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MIAMI: Bermuda issued a hurricane watch Thursday for the possible arrival within 36 hours of Hurricane Bill, a massive storm packing powerful winds and creating life-threatening ocean swells.
The Bermuda Weather Service issued a hurricane watch for the storm, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, which at 11 am (1500 GMT) was about 1,120 kilometres south-southeast of the island.
The Category Three hurricane was moving at around 30 kilometres per hour toward the northwest, and was expected to pass over the open waters between the United States and Bermuda early Saturday, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
Bill has maximum sustained winds of nearly 195 kilometres per hour, with higher gusts, and is likely to strengthen over the next day, possibly regaining Category Four status, the Miami-based NHC said.
Forecasters warned about potentially deadly swells and rip currents, and said Bill has the potential to cause "extensive damage" if it makes landfall.
The 1-5 categories on the Saffir-Simpson scale indicate the storm's severity, with a Category Three hurricane expelling dangerous winds that will cause extensive damage to populated areas, and a category four classed as having "extremely dangerous winds" expected to create "devastating damage."
The Atlantic hurricane season began on June 1 and ends on November 30.
Weather experts earlier this month reduced the number of projected hurricanes in the north Atlantic this season to four, two of them major hurricanes with winds above 178 kilometres per hour.
After one of the calmest starts to the hurricane season in a decade, researchers from Colorado State University said the development of an El Nino effect in the Pacific had caused them to scale back their projections for the Atlantic. - AFP/de
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