“Bill remains a very impressive and symmetric hurricane”

SHOOT: Bill is 1mph short of being classed as a Category 3 Hurricane [a major storm].

BLOOMBERG: Coastal New England may experience “significant erosion and possible damage to shoreline structures,” Jeff Masters, a meteorologist with Weather Underground in Ann Arbor, Michigan, wrote in his blog.

“Bill is still a very remote threat to the U.S. mainland at this time,” said Dan Leonard, a meteorologist with WSI Corp. in Andover, Massachusetts. “The primary threat is first to Bermuda.”

Nantucket, an island off the coast of Massachusetts, may be brushed by Bill as the storm passes on its way to the Canadian maritime provinces this weekend, said Leonard, whose company makes meteorological software and issues Atlantic hurricane seasonal forecasts.

clipped from www.bloomberg.com Aug. 18 (Bloomberg) -- Hurricane Bill is close to becoming a Category 3 major hurricane as it swirls through the Atlantic on a forecast course for Bermuda, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said today. Bill, the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, packed maximum sustained winds of 110 miles (177 kilometers) per hour as of about 5 p.m. Miami time, up from 100 mph earlier today, the center said in an advisory. That’s 1 mph less than the 111 mph threshold it needs to reach to become a Category 3 storm on the Saffir-Simpson scale. The center expects it to break that barrier tonight or tomorrow. “Bill remains a very impressive and symmetric hurricane,” said a center bulletin. “The intensity forecast calls for additional strengthening during the next couple of days.” The hurricane was about 635 miles east of the Caribbean’s Leeward Islands, heading west-northwest at 16 mph with a turn to the northwest forecast tomorrow, the hurricane center said.