Aug 24 (Reuters) - ICE cotton rose on Thursday for a fifth straight day after hitting a two-week high during the session, boosted by stronger weekly sales data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture and by concerns of potential crop damage because of Hurricane Harvey.

Cotton contracts for December settled up 0.94 cent, or 1.36 percent, at 69.83 cents per lb. It traded within a range of 68.55 and 69.88 cents a lb, its highest since Aug. 10.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture early on Thursday reported net upland sales of 277,600 running bales for the 2017/2018 crop year, up noticeably from the previous week. For 2018/2019, net sales of 51,900 were reported. "We think that today's report is supportive for December futures," said Louis Rose, co-founder and director of research and analytics at Rose Commodity Group.

Analysts and traders said Hurricane Harvey, which is expected to hit Texas on Friday, could cause damage to crops, where there is a lot of open cotton ready to be harvested. Harvey is forecast to come ashore as a Category 3 hurricane, the U.S. National Hurricane Center said, the third most powerful on the Saffir-Simpson scale, which would make it the strongest to hit the U.S. mainland in 12 years.

"The prospect of a good U.S. crop and rising stocks outside China will not permit any lasting price increase," Commerzbank analysts said in a note.

Total futures market volume fell by 8,109 to 16,775 lots. Data showed total open interest gained 1,284 to 227,385 contracts in the previous session.

"Near 70.00, basis December, seems a prudent place to sell futures," Rose said.

Certificated cotton stocks deliverable as of Aug. 23 totaled 11,279 480-lb bales, down from 12,503 in the previous session.

(Reporting by Nithin Prasad and Nallur Sethuraman in Bengaluru; Editing by Peter Cooney)