Hurricane Humberto is expected to intensify into a major hurricane sometime Saturday. Photo courtesy of NOAA
Sept. 26 (UPI) — Humberto strengthened into a hurricane Friday morning and could reach major hurricane status by the weekend, the National Hurricane Center said.
The eye of the storm was located about 465 miles northeast of the northern Leeward Islands. It had maximum sustained winds of 75 mph and was moving northwest at 3 mph, the NHC said in its 5 a.m. AST update.
The forecast track has Humberto moving northward toward the island of Bermuda in the coming days.
The NHC described Humberto as “better organized” over the previous several hours, with signs of “steady-to-rapid intensification.”
No coastal watches or warnings were in effect.
Humberto became the Atlantic hurricane season’s eighth named storm Wednesday. It’s the third official hurricane after Erin and Gabrielle.
In August, Erin intensified into a Category 5 hurricane with 160 mph winds spreading across a 500-mile area. It did not make landfall in the United States but caused dangerous surf, rip currents and coastal flooding along the East Coast, with the worst conditions in North Carolina and Virginia.
Gabrielle formed in mid-September and also became a major hurricane, a Category 4. The storm dissipated into a post-tropical cyclone near the Azores on Friday.
Tropical Storm Chantal was the only storm to make landfall in the U.S. — South Carolina on July 6.