Source: THE AS­SO­CI­AT­ED PRESS

Waves from Hur­ri­cane Kirk could cause life-threat­en­ing surf and rip cur­rent con­di­tions this week­end along the U.S. East Coast as well as in Bermu­da, the Greater An­tilles and the Ba­hamas, fore­cast­ers said.

Kirk was a Cat­e­go­ry 3 storm in the cen­tral At­lantic Ocean and could strength­en fur­ther, but was ex­pect­ed to re­main away from land, the Mi­a­mi-based U.S. Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter said Thurs­day.

Swells gen­er­at­ed by Kirk were ex­pect­ed to reach por­tions of the Lee­ward Is­lands on Fri­day, Bermu­da and the Greater An­tilles on Sat­ur­day, and the East Coast and the Ba­hamas on Sun­day, the Cen­ter said.

There were no coastal watch­es or warn­ings in ef­fect. The ma­jor hur­ri­cane was about 1,130 miles (1,820 kilo­me­tres) east of the Lee­ward Is­lands with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 125 mph (205 kph).

Mean­while, Trop­i­cal Storm Leslie formed late Wednes­day in the east­ern At­lantic and could strength­en in­to a hur­ri­cane in the com­ing days, fore­cast­ers said. It al­so was not yet deemed a threat to land.

The storm was lo­cat­ed about 540 miles (870 kilo­me­tres) south­west of the south­ern­most tip of the Cabo Verde Is­lands and had max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 45 mph (75 kph), the Cen­ter said.

The storms churned in the At­lantic as res­cuers in the U.S. South­east searched for peo­ple un­ac­count­ed for af­ter Hur­ri­cane He­lene struck last week, leav­ing be­hind a trail of death and cat­a­stroph­ic dam­age. —MI­A­MI (AP)