WILMINGTON — The National Hurricane Center has named Tropical Storm Chris the third named storm of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season located just off the coast of North Carolina early Sunday morning.
“An Air Force Reserve reconnaissance aircraft has been investigating the cyclone early this morning, and found flight-level winds of 45 knots at 925 millibars and believable SFMR (Stepped-Frequency Microwave Radiometer) surface winds of around 34 knots in the southeast quadrant. On this basis, the system has been designated as Tropical Storm Chris, the 3rd named storm of the 2018 Atlantic season,” according to the National Hurricane Center.
Related: Tropical depression likely to form off North Carolina Coast
The storm has lingered off the North Carolina coast for several days, and is expected to stick around for a few days.
“Although the winds associated with the tropical storm have increased a little, the overall organization of Chris has not changed much over the past few hours. The low-level center is still exposed to the north of a broken band of deep convection and the cyclone lacks an inner-core, according to the NHC.
“While Chris is generally expected to continue to meander off the coast of the Carolinas for the next couple of days before accelerating to the northeast ahead of a deep-layer trough approaching from the northwest, the timing of this acceleration is highly uncertain,” NHC reports concluded.
The predicted track of the storm does not have it making landfall in North Carolina, but the National Weather Service has issued beach advisories as well as small craft advisories for the Cape Fear Region.
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