Boston - Hurricane Arthur made landfall late Thursday near Beaufort, North Carolina, as a Category 2 hurricane with winds of more than 96 mph, passing farther west than initially expected; early forecasts indicated that its center would stay over the ocean. Before daybreak, the eye of the storm passed close to popular vacation towns in the Outer Banks, including Nags Head, Kill Devil Hills and this town of about 3,300 permanent residents.

Even at a distance from the shoreline, towering waves could be heard crashing loudly into the beach.

At 2 p.m., the National Hurricane Center in Miami said that the storm was powering away from the coast at about 25 mph. The maximum sustained winds had slowed to 90 mph, making it a Category 1 storm, and its center was 225 miles southwest of Chatham, Massachusetts. Although the storm was set to churn far from the American shoreline for most of the day, forecasters said it could lash the Massachusetts coast with heavy rain on Friday night. A tropical storm warning was in place for Nantucket and Cape Cod, and officials extended it early Friday as far as Woods Hole.