Tropical storm moving from Massachusetts

NANTUCKET, Mass., July 21 (UPI) -- The National Hurricane Center has discontinued warnings for the coast of Massachusetts after Tropical Storm Beryl passed over Nantucket.

Early Friday Beryl had moved about 35 miles northeast of Nantucket. The storm was moving northeast at about 21 mph, with maximum winds of nearly 50 mph.

Heavy rains were dumped on Nantucket and winds in excess of 45 mph developed 19-foot waves but no damage was reported as of Friday morning. High tides were expected to subside by later Friday, the Hurricane Center said.

The storm was the first in a season that experts have predicted could bring New England its first hurricane in 15 years, The Boston Globe reported Friday. Some have expressed worries that the region is not prepared for a large-scale storm.

"The last really big hurricane to have a direct strike in New England was the great hurricane of 1938, and the populations have of course grown immensely since then -- so we have a tremendous number of people living in a hurricane-prone area that have never experienced a hurricane," Dennis Feltgen, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the Globe. "That's an awful lot of people you'd have to evacuate, without experience."