today as Hurricane Francis brushes by.

She was upgraded to a hurricane at 8 p.m. last night.

As of 10 p.m. last night Francis was 250 miles southeast of Bermuda and moving slowly north at six knots.

Expected to strengthen slightly, the Category-One minimal hurricane was packing winds of 65-80 knots.

The National Hurricane Centre had predicted she would only become a hurricane by 3 p.m. today.

The US Naval Oceanography Command Facility forecasted her closest point to Bermuda would be 140 miles to the east at 3 p.m. And it said she would bring 35-45-knot winds out of the north, gusting to 50 knots.

Five to eight-foot seas were expected inside the reef, increasing to 15 feet outside the reef.

Francis formed suddenly in the mid-Atlantic yesterday with maximum sustained winds of 40 m.p.h., just over the threshold for a tropical storm. She became a tropical storm yesterday afternoon.

Francis is the sixth named storm of the 1992 Atlantic hurricane season, which ends on November 30.

The most destructive was Hurricane Andrew, which tore through Florida and Louisiana, leaving at least 55 dead and more than $20 billion in damage.

Winds brought on by the hurricane have already caused some damage. A construction barge moored off the Tynes Bay incinerator site on North Shore broke loose in the gale-force winds last night and was grounded.

And Harbour Radio reported receiving a number of calls from yachts battling high seas and winds south of Bermuda.

Harbour Radio was last night assisting a French Canadian sailor and his family who were suffering fatigue and broken rudders on their yacht L'Entetee .

The man had trouble making landfall in Bermuda and the officers were talking him through it.