ORLANDO, Fla – As of 11 a.m. Thursday, Tropical Storm Henri continues to churn about 400 miles off of the Florida coast as it slowly lifts away from the Sunshine State.
The storm will continue to be pulled north over the weekend, likely becoming a hurricane by Saturday.
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There is growing confidence that Henri could make landfall in New England Sunday. Hurricane watches -- meaning hurricane conditions are possible within the next 48 hours -- have been issued from central and eastern Long Island to Cape Cod. A tropical storm watch is in effect for western portions of Long Island and western Connecticut.
Storm surge watches are also in effect for coastal areas as ocean water could be pushed inland up to 3-5 feet above normal high tide. The highest storm surge is expected to occur along Western Long Island into coastal Rhode Island and Massachusetts.
Since 1851, only 19 hurricanes have made landfall in the northeast. (Delaware, New Jersey, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut, Massachusetts, and Maine.) Since 1945, seven hurricanes came ashore.
Most of the hurricanes to make landfall in New England were unnamed due to the naming of storms not starting until the 1950s.
The last time a hurricane made landfall in the northeast was Hurricane Bob in 1991. Bob made landfall in Newport, Rhode Island as a category 2 storm.