Over the past few hours, Ophelia (now a hurricane as of 5PM) has continued to become better organized with a central dense overcast trying to form around the storms center of circulation.

Radar imagery from the Wilmington, NC National Weather Service Doppler radar depicts the outer rainbands associated with Ophelia spreading inland, albeit extremely slowly. Given the slow movement of this system, there is concern Ophelia could dump in excess of 5-8" of rain in some locations through Thursday.

Winds with this system are not expected to be a major problem and should generally stay under 90-100mph, limiting the amount of damage from that field. However, tornadoes and a few severe thunderstorms may pose an isolated risk for increased storm damage, mainly closer to the SC/NC coastline.

Ophelia will eventually move out of the picture as a mid-latitude cold front approaches from the west and helps to "kick" her out into the north central Atlantic. With this track, the extreme southeastern Canadian Maritimes may feel some affects from a weakening Hurricane Ophelia.

As for Ophelia's affects on our weather, they look to remain rather minimal as the Category 1 hurricane should remain well south and east of the metro region. Some increased cloudiness and a few showers (mainly associated with the aforementioned cold front) should be the only noticeable effects around the metro region Wednesday night/Thursday.