A weather system that was brewing along the East Coast became Tropical Storm Ophelia on Friday and was forecast to soak portions of the Carolinas and the Mid-Atlantic region with up to seven inches of rain over the weekend.
Tropical storm conditions were already spreading toward the coast of North Carolina on Friday morning. More than seven million people from the Carolinas to Delaware were under tropical storm warnings, according to the National Weather Service.
As of 5 p.m. on Friday, the National Hurricane Center estimated that Ophelia’s sustained winds had increased to about 70 miles per hour and the storm was about 165 miles south-southwest of Cape Hatteras, N.C.
Some “additional strengthening cannot be ruled out” as Ophelia crosses the warm waters of the Gulf Stream as it approaches North Carolina, the Hurricane Center said. After it makes landfall, the storm is expected to…
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