Hurricane Erin is continuing to grow in size while maintaining intense winds, and the storm’s large size will generate dangerous high surf and rip currents along the entire Eastern Seaboard this week.
Where Erin Is Now
As The Weather Channel reports, Erin’s center is currently under 700 miles southwest of Bermuda, moving northwest. Erin remains a powerful hurricane. Just as importantly, though, the size of Erin’s tropical-storm- and hurricane-force winds has increased dramatically, as expected.
Path, Intensity Forecast
As the forecast path graphic below shows, Erin will curl north, then northeastward between North Carolina and Bermuda and generally south of Atlantic Canada this week.
Erin is expected to remain a formidably strong hurricane early this week with some fluctuations in intensity possible. While wind shear is expected to cap off any further intensification by mid-week, Erin’s large size means we can’t yet rule out any tropical storm force gusts in outer rainbands later this week either for the Outer Banks of North Carolina or for Bermuda.
Potential Impacts
That said, meteorologists do not expect Erin’s strongest winds to come anywhere close to either eastern North Carolina or Bermuda. But Erin’s large and increasing size means it will generate high surf and dangerous rip currents along the U.S. East Coast much of this week, from Florida to New England.
Of all hurricane hazards, 16% of all fatalities come from rip currents and rough seas. Please stay out of the Atlantic waters this week.
These swells pounding onshore could also lead to some coastal flooding at high tide along parts of the East Coast, particularly in the Carolinas along east or southeast-facing beaches. The NWS office in Morehead City, North Carolina, said parts of Highway 12 in the Outer Banks are at risk of overwash and washouts beginning Tuesday, continuing into at least Thursday. An evacuation of Hatteras Island was already ordered due to this coastal flood threat.
And as alluded to earlier, we can’t completely rule out a brush of tropical storm wind gusts along the Outer Banks of North Carolina or Bermuda in outer rainbands later this week, given Erin’s large size.
Erin’s History
Meteorologists first began watching the area of instability that eventually formed Hurricane Erin several days before the storm was named Monday of this past week. The system remained a tropical storm as it traveled westward across the Atlantic, weakening slightly mid-week as it battled cooler waters.
Thanks to warmer waters in the western Atlantic, Erin began a period of explosive rapid intensification starting on Friday, going from a tropical storm to Category 5 in just under 30 hours, and from a Category 3 to a Category 5 in just under 6 hours.
Erin has also joined a rare group of only five hurricanes that have wind speeds of at least 145 mph by August 16 since 1970, according to Dr. Phil Klotzbach. Erin is the first Category 5 hurricane since Milton and Beryl in 2024.
Erin began to undergo an eyewall replacement cycle on Saturday, setting off a period of fluctuation in intensity and bringing the storm back to Category 4 intensity by Saturday evening. While Erin has been skirting around islands in the Caribbean, a wind gust of 57 mph was recorded on the island Tortola in the British Virgin Islands Saturday evening, but sustained tropical storm force winds have remained to the north of the islands so far.
Erin dumped up to 6 inches of rain in Puerto Rico and up to 7 inches of rain in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the National Weather Service.
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