Hurricane Arthur. Hurricane Arthur is the earliest recorded hurricane to strike the U.S. state of North Carolina during a calendar year. The first named storm of the 2014 Atlantic hurricane season, Arthur developed from an initially non-tropical area of low pressure over the southeastern United States that emerged into the western Atlantic Ocean by June 28. After sufficiently organizing, developing a well-defined circulation amid a favorable environment, it was classified a tropical depression on July 1. The system continued to strengthen, and was declared a tropical storm later that day, designated as Arthur. Drifting northward, the storm reached hurricane status early on July 3 and recurved toward the north-northeast. Further structural organization resulted in additional intensification, and by 01:00 UTC on July 4, Arthur attained its peak winds of 100 mph as a Category 2 hurricane on the Saffir–Simpson hurricane wind scale. Arthur made landfall at 03:30 UTC over North Carolinas Shackleford Banks, positioned between Cape Lookout and Beaufort, and intensified slightly further, with a minimum atmospheric pressure of 973 mbar. Numerous tropical cyclone warnings and watches were issued for areas along the East Coast of the United States. A state of emergency was declared for 26 North Carolina counties, and both mandatory and voluntary evacuations were imposed along the states coast. Several hundred government personnel were deployed to assist in evacuation and preparation efforts, along with heavy equipment capable of removing sand and debris. Due to the hurricanes timing, many Independence Day activities in the U.S. were cancelled or rescheduled, and despite remaining mostly offshore, vacationers on the East Coast were warned to be wary of the possibility of rip currents. Damage was minimal, primarily limited to strewn debris and inundated roads, with 44,000 outages and no deaths or serious injuries reported despite widespread flooding along northern sections of the coast. A tropical storm warning was posted in Massachusetts. July 4, the tropical storm warning in Massachusetts was extended westward to Woods Hole. Around that time, areas west of Cape Lookout in North Carolina were no longer under a hurricane warning.
Posted on: Sat, 05 Jul 2014 14:57:44 +0000
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