Hurricane Arthur's Greatest Threat May be Rip Currents

Canceled. Rescheduled. As Arthur, now a Category 1 hurricane, gyrates up the East Coast, beachfront Fourth of July celebrations are falling flat, and that could save lives.

The Atlantic storm graduated from a tropical storm to a hurricane early Thursday, the National Weather Service said. It's maximum sustained wind speeds have reached 75 mph, as it grinds towards the shoreline of North Carolina.

Even if Arthur goes down in weather history as a softie of a cyclone, it may have some lethal tricks up its sleeve.

Death in the surf

After it has finished its pass of North Carolina by the end of Thursday, it could still leave a danger lurking beneath the surf: Rip currents.

Anyone in North Carolina should stay out of the water, CNN meteorologist Chad Myers warns.

"There's no time for you to react. That's why you can't be there at all," Myers said. "This is not a landfall-problem hurricane. This is a rip-current-problem hurricane," he said.

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