Hurricane Earl heads for Cape Cod, Martha's Vineyard

Sep 3, 2010, 20:18 GMT

Handout NASA satellite image from the GOES-13 satellite at 7:32 a.m. EDT (11:32 am UTC) on 03 September shows a huge Hurricane Earl northeast of North Carolina with cloud cover stretching over the northeastern US. A disorganized Tropical Storm Fiona is located in the bottom right side of this image. EPA/NASA

Washington - The weakened Hurricane Earl was expected to hit Cape Cod and its islands by Friday night after dusting rain over the US Open tennis match in Long Island and largely sparing the North Carolina and Virginia coasts.

Flight delays were reported at New York City airports and other airports in the region. Tropical storm warnings were in effect for Nova Scotia and Prince Edward Island.

Light rain had disrputed play at the US Open at Flushing Meadows, east of New York City.

The US National Hurricane Centre downgraded Earl to a category-one on a five-step scale, with winds of 130 km an hour. At its worst, it was a category four.

Earl had in its sites both Martha's Vineyard, the island where US President Barack Obama spent his vacation last month, and historic Nantucket island, once home to a large part of the Atlantic whaling fleet.

Earl moved up the eastern US seaboard since mid-week, whipping up waves along the coast and chasing end-of-summer vacationers from North Carolina's Outer Banks islands. There were no reports of deaths or injures.

'We dodged a bullet,' North Carolina Governor Bev Perdue told CNN Friday morning.

The storm was disrupting the traditional first weekend of September, a popular end-of-summer holiday when many Americans head to the beaches through Monday's US observance of the Labor Day holiday.