1st Hurricane of Atlantic Season Forms 1,200 Miles From Florida

MIAMI —  The first hurricane of the 1993 Atlantic season burst to life Thursday hundreds of miles east of Florida, weather officials said.

The transformation of Tropical Depression 5 into Tropical Storm Emily and then Hurricane Emily took only three hours and came two days after South Florida residents marked the first anniversary of Hurricane Andrew.

Hurricane Emily was centered about 415 miles southeast of Bermuda. It had top sustained winds of 78 m.p.h. and was moving west at 4 m.p.h. Strengthening was expected during the next 24 hours, forecasters said.

The hurricane was too far out in the Atlantic Ocean to predict where it would wind up, said Bob Sheets, director of the National Hurricane Center in suburban Coral Gables, Fla. The storm was about 1,200 miles east of central Florida, he said.

So far this hurricane season, the Atlantic Ocean has been the site of four other tropical storms. Two of them, Bret and Cindy, were blamed for deaths in Venezuela and the Dominican Republic.