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Miami: Hurricane Bertha weakened back into a less-menacing tropical storm on Sunday after stalling for a day near the British colony of Bermuda, the US National Hurricane Centre said.
The top sustained winds of what had been the first hurricane of the 2008 Atlantic storm season slipped to 115 km/h, below the 119km/h threshold at which tropical storms are classified as hurricanes.
Bertha was expected to weaken a little more and then pass slowly "not far to the southeast and east" of Bermuda, a wealthy mid-Atlantic offshore finance centre, when it finally began moving again, the hurricane centre added.
At one point a "major" Category 3 hurricane on the five-step Saffir-Simpson scale of storm intensity, as Hurricane Katrina had been when it came ashore near New Orleans in 2005, Bertha weakened because of its lack of movement. Its energy had churned up colder waters from beneath the sea surface, depriving it of the warm water that fuels tropical storms.
Bermuda, which is also a major tourist resort, has strict building codes and a tropical storm is unlikely to pose any significant threat to its 66,000 people.
Oil markets had kept a wary eye on Bertha after it formed because of the potential of hurricanes to cause havoc among the oil rigs of the Gulf of Mexico.
Bertha formed near the Cape Verde Islands off Africa and its development so far east so early in the season is viewed by some hurricane experts as ominous.
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