HURRICANE OPHELIA--Early Afternoon Look

Instead of us repeating all of the hurricane advisories and discussions here, please check in on the 3340 tropical weather page. It will show you all the latest advisories, discussions, tracking map, you name it. This link will take you quickly and directly to it:

http://www.abc3340.com/weather/tropics.html

(Also please scan down to earlier posts)

LATE NOTES

* In the last 15 minutes or so, numerous trees have been uprooted in the Wilmington area as wind gusts increased to over 70 mph in the general area. Lots of power lines down.

* Official observation from Wilmington Airport at 2 PM, EDT, had a peak gust of 67 mph.

* Wilmington Airport closed and will remain closed until at least 10 tomorrow morning

* Lots of power outages in SE North Carolina and roads washed out also.

* 5 to 9 inches of rain common so far today

SPOT REPORTS AT 2 PM EDT
Frying Pan Shoals...wind west 58, gusts 74
Cape Lookout, N.C.,...wind SE 47, gusts 54
Cape Hatteras...light rain, wind east at 30, gusts 38
Wilmington...light snow, wind north 40, gusts 67 mph (2.38 inches of rain last 6 hours)

NOTE...that light snow reported from Wilmington is in error of course. The automated observation equipment may think that blowing spray is snow. Not sure.