Hurricane Erin, the first major hurricane of the North American hurricane season, has intensified into a Category 5 storm, with sustained winds of 160 miles per hour, according to the National Weather Service.
Thankfully for the coastal U.S., forecasters do not believe the hurricane will make landfall, though severe weather on the periphery of the storm could cause adverse offshore conditions along the East Coast.
Erin is expected to take a turn north after this weekend, skirting the eastern edge of the U.S. According to the National Hurricane Center, the storm is expected to travel north between Bermuda and North Carolina’s Outer Banks before it continues onward into the Atlantic Ocean.
“We still expect this to eventually make a more northward turn and stay offshore of the East Coast of the United States. So that certainly is good news when dealing with a storm this powerful,” AccuWeather meteorologist Dan Pydynowski told USA TODAY.
The National Hurricane Center predicts that by the middle of next week the storm will double or triple in size. That expansion could cause rough oceans for parts of the western Atlantic.
The Caribbean will be the first to feel the storm’s power; heavy rainfall is predicted in the northern Leeward Islands, the Virgin Islands, and Puerto Rico this weekend. Two to four inches of rain are expected and flash flooding is possible in some areas, according to the NHC.
In the continental U.S., Erin is expected to generate dangerous surf conditions along essentially the entire East Coast. High waves and dangerously strong rip currents are likely.
Anyone visiting the beach on Florida’s east coast between August 18 and 21 should be mindful as the storm will likely create dangerous offshore conditions during that period, according to the National Weather Service.
Hurricane season in the Atlantic begins on June 1 and continued through the end of November. Major hurricanes — those that reach at least a Category 3 — tend to form in late August through mid-October, but Erin was an outlier. It began as a cluster of rainstorms off the western coast of Africa before it formed into a tropical storm system and intensified into a hurricane.
