Odds rising Florence will strike US East Coast next week

Bloomberg

Tropical Storm Florence is poised to strengthen as it swirls deep in the Atlantic Ocean and moves towards the US East Coast.
The storm is about 905 miles (1,460 kilometres) southeast of Bermuda, with winds of about 65 miles per hour, the US National Hurricane Center said in a bulletin. It’s on pace to hit the US on Thursday, and the odds of landfall are about 70 percent, said Jeff Masters, co-founder of Weather Underground.
“The Southeast is the most at-risk location,” Masters said in an interview. “Northern Florida to North Carolina is the most probable, but we can’t rule out all the way to Massachusetts.”
Experts are also tracking two tropical depressions off the coast of Africa and a third system southwest of Bermuda. Florence, which has been downgraded to a tropical storm, may become a hurricane again on Sunday, the National Hurricane Center said in an advisory. Masters expects it to become a major hurricane— “at least a Category 3.”
Storm-whipped swells are already affecting Bermuda and will reach portions of the US East Coast over the weekend. They “are likely to cause life-threatening surf and rip current conditions,” the National Hurricane Center said in the advisory.
Florence follows Gordon, which came ashore near the Alabama-Mississippi border late on Tuesday with flooding rains and winds that knocked out power to thousands.