A storm mov­ing clos­er to the U.S. East Coast will de­liv­er trop­i­cal storm con­di­tions to North Car­oli­na on Fri­day, the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter said.

The storm was off the coast of South Car­oli­na and North Car­oli­na ear­ly Fri­day with top sus­tained winds of 50 mph (85 kph). A storm surge watch was in ef­fect, with surges be­tween 3 and 5 feet (0.9 to 1.5 me­ters) fore­cast for parts of North Car­oli­na, the cen­ter re­port­ed.

As of Fri­day morn­ing, the storm was lo­cat­ed about 330 miles (530 kilo­me­ters) south­east of Charleston, South Car­oli­na, and about 325 miles (525 kilo­me­ters) south Cape Hat­teras, North Car­oli­na, and mov­ing north around 14 mph (22 kph), the cen­ter said.

Rain­fall of 3 to 5 inch­es (7.6 to 12.7 cen­time­ters), with lo­cal­ized amounts up to 7 inch­es (17.7 cen­time­ters), was ex­pect­ed across east­ern North Car­oli­na and in­to south­east Vir­ginia through Sat­ur­day, the cen­ter said.

Though the sys­tem had reached trop­i­cal storm strength, it was yet to be giv­en a name and the cen­ter was still re­fer­ring to it as Po­ten­tial Trop­i­cal Cy­clone Six­teen on Fri­day morn­ing. The hur­ri­cane cen­ter de­fines a po­ten­tial trop­i­cal cy­clone as a dis­tur­bance pos­ing a threat of trop­i­cal storm or hur­ri­cane con­di­tions to land with­in 48 hours.

Me­te­o­rol­o­gist Maria Tor­res, a pub­lic af­fairs of­fi­cer with the Mi­a­mi-based cen­ter, said peo­ple along the At­lantic coast need to watch the storm’s progress, gath­er sup­plies and make prepa­ra­tions for its ar­rival.

“This will bring some trop­i­cal storm force winds and storm surge along with the high winds to the East Coast through the week­end, main­ly from the South­east to the Mid-At­lantic states,” she told The As­so­ci­at­ed Press.

The trop­i­cal storm warn­ing was in ef­fect from Cape Fear, North Car­oli­na, to Fen­wick Is­land, Delaware. It al­so in­cludes the Chesa­peake Bay south of North Beach, Tidal Po­tomac south of Cobb Is­land and Albe­mar­le and Pam­li­co Sounds. Storm surge warn­ings were in ef­fect for ar­eas through­out the re­gion, the hur­ri­cane cen­ter said.

Vir­ginia emer­gency man­age­ment of­fi­cials warned of heavy rain, high winds and flood­ing in the next few days.

The Vir­ginia De­part­ment of Emer­gency Man­age­ment said on so­cial me­dia Thurs­day that of­fi­cials are co­or­di­nat­ing with lo­cal weath­er ser­vice of­fices to watch the sys­tem de­vel­op­ing off the coast. Of­fi­cials called on res­i­dents to pre­pare for the storm and im­pacts on the re­gion through­out the week­end.

North Car­oli­na Emer­gency Man­age­ment warned large swells from dis­tant Hur­ri­cane Nigel al­so would reach the state’s coast on Thurs­day, boost­ing the rip cur­rent risk. The com­bi­na­tion of those swells and the low-pres­sure sys­tem could mean ad­di­tion­al ocean over­wash, beach ero­sion and coastal flood­ing.

The hur­ri­cane cen­ter said storm surge be­tween 2 and 4 feet (0.6 to 1.2 me­ters) was ex­pect­ed.

A storm surge warn­ing was in ef­fect from Duck, North Car­oli­na, to Chin­coteague Vir­ginia, in­clud­ing Chesa­peake Bay south of Wind­mill Point, and for the Neuse Riv­er, the Pam­li­co Riv­er, and por­tions of Pam­li­co Sound.

A storm surge watch al­so was is­sued from Surf City in North Car­oli­na to Duck, North Car­oli­na, along with Chesa­peake Bay north of Wind­mill Point to Smith Point, the Tidal Po­tomac south of Colo­nial Beach and Albe­mar­le and the re­main­der of Pam­li­co Sound.

Mean­while, Hur­ri­cane Nigel was down­grad­ed to a post-trop­i­cal cy­clone cen­tered about 640 miles (1,030 kilo­me­ters) north­west of the Azores with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 70 mph (110 kph). There were no as­so­ci­at­ed coastal watch­es or warn­ings as the storm moved north­east at 37 mph (59 kph), the hur­ri­cane cen­ter said in its fi­nal up­date on the sys­tem Fri­day morn­ing.

MI­A­MI (AP)