Hurricane Earl Path Near U.S

Hurricane Earl followed a path to U.S. East Coast on Tuesday as the powerful storm moved away from the northeastern Caribbean islands had been beaten with winds and rain, the U.S. National Hurricane Center.

Forecasters said it remains unclear how much of the U.S. East Coast Earl, the second major hurricane of the 2010 Atlantic season, could affect later in the week.


"Interest in the Carolinas north to New England should monitor the progress of Earl," said National Hurricane Center in Miami in its 5 am (0900 GMT) advisory.

Earl was a strong Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 135 mph (215 kph) and was 290 miles (470 kilometers) east-southeast of Grand Turk Island. It was moving west-northwest on a curve track the hurricane center said it could take it near Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, on Thursday and Friday.

The center of the storm was moving further away from the U.S. island territory Puerto Rico and is forecast to cross the open Atlantic east of the Turks and Caicos Island on Tuesday.

In its current path, Earl did not pose a threat to the Gulf of Mexico, home to U.S. oil majors and gas installations.

A direct blow to the U.S. East Coast can not be excluded, and Earl will bring heavy rain, and navigating perilous seas and gusty winds to the Atlantic coast of North Carolina to New England and Canada, said Alex Sosnowski, senior meteorologist for private forecaster AccuWeather.

If Earl swings farther west than expected, heavy rains could sweep the corridor 95, North Carolina to Washington, Philadelphia and New York, said.

Hovensa LLC said operations were normal at its refinery by 500,000 barrels per day on the island of St. Croix, but the port of the refinery and all other ports in the U.S. Virgin Islands had been closed because of Earl.



Earlier, the storm lashed the northern Leeward Islands in the Caribbean with strong winds, torrential rains and waves in its wake.

The world's three largest cruise lines - Carnival Corp, Royal Caribbean and Norwegian Cruise Line - changed their itineraries in the Caribbean and the change of itinerary at least seven ships to avoid the storm.

Residents on the island of St. Martin / St. Martin, the two halves administered respectively by France and the Netherlands, said the approval of Earl's caused power outages and downed trees.

"Now the wind is actually incredibly strong ... I've seen a lot of damage to trees ... assume ceilings course, I'm watching mine carefully," said Steve Wright, general manager of the Grand Case Beach Club in Grand Case, St. Martin, told Reuters.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

In Antigua, some flooding in low lying areas was reported. After the hurricane passed, Antigua and Barbuda declared a national holiday for residents of the twin-island state for cleaning.

The ports of the U.S. Virgin Islands ports and Puerto Rico's Vieques, Culebra, Fajardo and San Juan were closed, the U.S. Coast Guard said. Government offices and schools in eastern Puerto Rico were closed.

The hurricane center said Tropical Storm Fiona was 590 miles (950 kilometers) east of the Leeward Islands. It had maximum winds of 40 mph (65 kph) and was moving west-northwest at 23 mph (37 kph) on a course that was expected to take to the northeast of the Leeward Islands on Wednesday. None of the models forecast Fiona in the Gulf of Mexico.

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View Hurricane Earl Path

Hurricane Earl can become a greater threat to the east coast than previously thought."The margin of error is 200 to 300 kilometers," says Dennis Feltgen, a spokesman for the National Hurricane Center in Miami. "But everyone should pay attention to this."

Even if the storm did not affect the coast, forecasters are sure to cause high waves that could prevent thousands of residents and tourists in the northeast to enjoy a dip in the sea this weekend Labor Day.


"The rip currents will continue until the first half of the weekend," says Henry Margusity, senior meteorologist with AccuWeather.com in State College, Pa.

Mr. Margusity says there is still much uncertainty about the exact track of the storm. So far, they suspect that everything remains on the high seas, leading to strong tropical force gusts on eastern Long Island and the rain in New York. The storm then the track and hit the northeast of Cape Cod for several hours before heading to Maine and Maritime Provinces.

"I think Long Island will only be a bad storm storm, and held there could be some hurricane-force winds," said Margusity.

If the storm was moving west even could follow Interstate 95 to the coast. This could cause major damage as the storm surge waters to get pushed up the Hudson River and strong winds hit Long Island.

"I could see the eye of court in eastern Long Island and Boston," said Margusity.

What will determine the path of the storm is a powerful area of low pressure is moving through the Midwest, bringing showers and thunderstorms.

"Hurricanes would go back to those lows," said Margusity. The area of low pressure can cause the storm to get caught in the northeast, according to the moment.

Emergency officials in New York say they have begun discussions with county officials on preparations for the storm.

"We have our plans in place," said Dennis Michalski, director of Public Information for the New York State Division of Homeland Security.

New York is better prepared than it has been in the past because it has an evacuation plan, said Nicholas Coch, a professor at City University of New York and an expert in the preparation.

But, he says, "New Yorkers were born complacent. Never think that hurricanes will hit, they think that cold water diverted or stopped. I heard all the reasons why I do not think that concern them."

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Tropical Storm Bonnie 2010

Tropical Storm Bonnie 2010 may cause a delay of an oil spill containment work. Meanwhile, BP removes some photos of its oil updating the web site spill, as they were found modified Photoshop

BP takes three photos of the Gulf disaster caused by oil spillage following Web site, they met with controversy, they were converted in Photoshop. BP acknowledged that these images have been some changes to the photographer, which the company warned that any further changes to the photos under any circumstances.


One of the recently deleted images seem to come from a helicopter flying over the sky. Photos showed the sea near the oil spill site disaster BP, as it was captured inside the helicopter.

However, Gizmodo reported that the picture featured an unknown object in one of its corners. In analyzing the photos, which were removed and added Flicker by BP in conjunction with his original piece, an oil company has made it clear that the photographer took a picture with the helicopter, which was resting on the dock.

But the photographer has brought some changes to it using Photoshop to think that photo was taken from a helicopter to fly. BP said that she did not know why the contract photographer edit pictures like that.

However, another photo from the same photographer contract previously removed BP. This image shows BP engineers examining objects on the screens in offshore dispatching disaster. Photographer screens were filled vacant dispatch some objects to Photoshop.

BP said that the image was erroneously issued. In fact, the photographer does not mean changes to the publication, but also to show his colleagues in operation feature of Photoshop.

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