‘Unusual’ sea storm prompts hurricane-force wind warning for cruise ships

An unusual ocean storm has prompted the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) Ocean Prediction Center to issue a hurricane-force wind warning for the seas offshore of North Carolina, an “important” warning for cruise ships, according to a NOAA spokesman.

On Friday morning, the Ocean Prediction Center issued a hurricane-force wind warning that said winds could cause dangerous sea conditions about 115 miles to about 290 miles offshore from Hatteras Canyon to Cape Fear, North Carolina. A storm warning extended closer to North Carolina’s east coast.

The storms are typical of the winter months, said Joe Sienkiewicz, application division chief for NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center. Newsweekbut the intensity makes this one unusual. The storm underwent rapid intensification with its wind speeds currently around 75 mph, equivalent to a Category 1 hurricane.

“It’s not unusual for winter, but it’s a little early for this intensity,” Sienkiewicz said.

Sienkiewicz said the storm is not a tropical system and therefore warnings have not been issued through the National Hurricane Center (NHC). Instead of moving toward the northeastern United States as a northerly, the storm is moving southeast toward Bermuda before experts expect it to shift north.

The strong winds will cause dangerous seas, with wave heights as high as 30 feet. Although the wave height is not considered “extreme,” Sienkiewicz said, it will give ships in the area “something to contend with.”

“This is a time of year when there is quite a bit of shipping in these waters,” he said. “It’s also a time of year when cruise ships still travel from Baltimore or New York down to the Bahamas.”

Sienkiewicz said cruise ships traveling through the area will have to take action to minimize the storm’s impact. According to CruiseMapper, a website After tracking cruise lines, there were no ships in the affected area Friday afternoon, but Norwegian Cruise Line’s (NCL) Breakaway ship, returning to New York and sailing northwest of Bermuda, reported “rough” seas, according to the website.

Newsweek contacted NCL via email for comment.

“Forecasts produced by NOAA’s Ocean Prediction Center are essential to people working in the commercial deep-sea fishing industry, commercial shipping industry, cruise lines and others with interests far from land,” said NOAA spokeswoman Erica Grow Cei Newsweek.

Sienkiewicz said the storm will ease as it approaches Bermuda on Saturday morning, where it will be classified as a storm rather than a hurricane.

Elsewhere in the Atlantic, Tropical Storm Sara is currently battering Honduras with maximum sustained winds of 50 mph, according to the NHC. Heavy rains from the storm are expected to cause life-threatening flooding and mudslides in northern Honduras before the storm cuts through Belize, Guatemala and the Yucatan Peninsula.