No Name 1 p.m. update (NHC spokesmen)....

[dixiebreeze]

The Associated Press

Updated: 1:02 p.m. ET March 27, 2004MIAMI - The first known hurricane to form in the South Atlantic threatened the coast of Brazil on Saturday packing winds of about 85 mph.

No other hurricane has been spotted in the South Atlantic since satellites began tracking weather systems in the 1960s, said Robbie Berg, a meteorologist with the U.S. National Hurricane Center in Miami.

The unnamed hurricane was likely to affect a wide swath of the coast late Saturday or early Sunday, said Jack Beven, a hurricane specialist at the U.S. National Hurricane Center. The hurricane’s center could get very close to the coast without actually striking land, he said.

The largest city that was threatened was Porto Alegre, but Beven said it wasn’t possible to determine where the hurricane could hit.

On Saturday morning, the Category 1 hurricane was about 160 miles off the coast of southern Brazil and moving west-southwest at 7 to 8 mph, Beven said.

It had sustained wind of about 85 mph, making it a Category 1 hurricane; that classification meant it had winds of 74-95 mph.

Hurricanes typically don’t form in the South Atlantic because prevailing wind patterns tear storms apart, Berg said.

In the Northern Hemisphere, hurricanes spin in a counterclockwise direction; in the Southern Hemisphere they rotate in a clockwise motion.

The hurricane season in the North Atlantic runs from June 1 to Nov. 30.