Nightly News   |  September 02, 2010

Earl's fury unfurls in Atlantic

Hurricane Earl weakened to a Category 3 storm on Thursday, but the giant system still packed 125-mile-per-hour sustained winds, stirring up 29-foot waves at its center. The Weather Channel's hurricane specialist Bryan Norcross has latest on Hurricane Earl's path.

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This content comes from a Full-Text Transcript of the program.

BRIAN WILLIAMS, anchor: First, instead, of great urgency to folks up and down the East Coast , Hurricane Earl , Category 3 . It's heading north. It's a storm as big as the state of California . Ocean waves at the center of this have been 29 feet high. The storm hasn't jogged as much or as soon as forecasters had hoped. That's bad news for the coast of North Carolina , first off, where it will arrive in the next 12-hour window. Our team is in place. We begin with the storm, where it is, where it's headed. Veteran hurricane specialist Bryan Norcross at The Weather Channel with more. Bryan , what's the last update telling you?

BRYAN NORCROSS reporting: All right. We've got the radar Bryan , and good evening. There's your hurricane, and there is the business part of the hurricane. That's the eye, now within view of land-based radar, and it looks like it will be in the vicinity of Cape Hatteras about eight hours from now. The worst part of it right here on the northwest side, and it's a very, very close call where there -- whether they're going to get that on Cape Hatteras . But our concern is actually more for the future, for tomorrow. Let's take a look at what we expect to happen as we go into tomorrow. And we're looking at Cape Cod and we're looking at Long Island . These are the hurricane-force winds that are expected to expand out and cover more of the Atlantic . And look at that. They may very well affect all of Cape Cod and the islands off Cape Cod with extremely gusty winds, high surf, and hurricane conditions expected there. And the end of Long Island is going to get clipped. So it's going to be a very close call for much of the East Coast .

WILLIAMS: All right, Bryan , thanks. We'll have all of it covered. We'll keep talking to you,