Date added: Wednesday September 13, 2006: 1am EST

Florence Done; Gordon A Hurricane

TD 8 Should Be Helene Soon

No US Threats Seen
Also:

Hurricane Target: Bermuda

By HurricaneNow.com
Chief Correspondent Jeff Flock

Florence

It has become extratropical and is weakening. Florence still packs some punch but it will continue north and east and not be of concern to the US coast except from the high surf. Here is the surf cam from Nags Head, North Carolina. You can find other east coast cams from this link also. Bermuda got a Cat 1 storm and that they can handle. Minor damage reported from Florence.

Gordon

No threat to any land, even Bermuda. It is already turning north well east of the British island. It will curl to more open water just like Florence. Gordon is a much smaller storm in size.

TD 8

This should be TS Helene before too long and has the potential to be a hurricane more powerful than either Florence or Gordon. But like its older siblings it likely lacks the potential of threatening any land, save Bermuda. It too will likely get caught in the westerlies and curl to sea. But it's far enough out that it will take a while.

Bermuda Hurricane History

Since Bermuda seems to be the only possible piece of land in danger in this recent spate of storms we'll repeat our perspective from earlier on the tiny British posession in the Atlantic. Because of the way the weather patterns are lining up, Florence, Gordon and perhaps Helene have, are or could be setting their sights on Bermuda, long a vacation destination for US travellers, is a small target, but is well-prepared for hurricanes, with strict building codes and power and phone cables underground. And well it should be prepared given its vulnerability in the Atlantic and having experienced the famed Havana-Bermuda Hurricane of 1926. That was a late season storm that reached Category 4 strength. It hit Cuba at Cat 3, devastating Havana and making it one of the most deadly storms to ever hit Cuba. It weakened, passed across the Florida peninsula and then reintensified to Cat 4 and hit Bermuda dead on. 88 people were killed there. A total of 738 people lost their lives to the storm on its trek through Cuba, the Bahamas and Bermuda. The damage estimate was $1 billion current dollars in total.

The last decent size hurricane to hit Bermuda was Fabian in 2003. It killed 4 and did $300 million in damage.