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By Anna Skinner
Associate News Editor
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Tropical Storm Kirk—expected to strengthen into a major hurricane later this week—will spark a deadly warning for the U.S. Eastern Seaboard only a week after Hurricane Helene ravaged several states.
Helene made landfall last Thursday as a Category 4 hurricane, with maximum sustained winds of around 140 miles per hour near Perry, Florida, in the state's Big Bend region.
The storm brought fatalities across several southern and southeastern states, with storm surge, devastating winds and torrential rain that threatened several dams and inundated Asheville, North Carolina, with floodwaters. More than 100 people were killed by the storm, the Associated Press reported.
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Tropical Storm Kirk formed on Monday in the Atlantic Ocean. As of Monday afternoon, Kirk had maximum sustained winds of 60 mph. Over the next few days, the National Hurricane Center (NHC) anticipates Kirk becoming a "very strong major hurricane."
Spaghetti or computer models illustrating potential storm paths show Kirk remaining at sea or curving northeast to trek toward Europe. However, deadly swells generated by the storm will travel hundreds of miles to impact the East Coast, where many states are still recovering from Helene.
"It's definitely going to send a swell to the East Coast of the United States," National Weather Service (NWS) Warning Coordination Meteorologist Will Ulrich told Newsweek.
Ulrich said deadly rip currents could impact the Eastern Seaboard as early as Sunday. Warnings related to the rip currents could be issued as soon as this weekend, a day or so before the expected conditions.
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"The waves will take a while to propagate to the coastline, but modeling does indicate that Kirk should send a long period swell to the East Coast of the U.S.," Ulrich said.
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Rip currents can be caused by hurricanes or tropical storms that cause disturbances in the ocean, and they can impact a beach even if a tropical storm is hundreds of miles away, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned. Rip currents from Kirk will create dangerous swimming conditions, even as the larger waves attract people to the beach.
"While the surf may look more inviting because of the waves, very dangerous rip current threats often increase when the swells from distant hurricanes begin to impact the coastline," Ulrich said, adding it will be very dangerous for east-central Florida, as well as up the Eastern Seaboard.
And although Kirk isn't expected to make direct landfall in the U.S., the rip currents could prove fatal.
"Rip currents have been the number one weather-related killer in east-central Florida and along the Eastern Seaboard," Ulrich said. "Even distant hurricanes can become hazardous."
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