Hurricane Erin explodes to category five strength near Atlantic's Caribbean islands
Hurricane Erin was not expected to make land, however it threatened to dump flooding rains in the north-east Caribbean as it continued to grow larger.
The first Atlantic hurricane of 2025, Erin ramped up from a tropical storm to a category five hurricane in a mere 24 hours.
By late Saturday morning local time its maximum sustained winds had more than doubled to 255 kilometres per hour.
Mike Brennen, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami, said Erin grew into a "very powerful hurricane," with its winds gaining 96kph in about nine hours.
Authorities said Erin should begin to slowly weaken on Monday as the storm encounters increased wind shear.
However forecasters predicted that it will remain a major hurricane until late in the week.
The hurricane remained a category five storm Saturday evening when it was located 220 kilometres north-west of Anguilla and moving west at 24kph.
The storm's centre was forecast to remain at sea, passing 233km north of Puerto Rico, according to the National Hurricane Center.
Tropical storm watches were issued for St Martin, St Barts and St Maarten, and authorities warned that heavy rain in some areas could trigger flash flooding, landslides and mudslides.
Turks and Caicos Islands, south-east of the Bahamas, were also under a tropical storm watch.
Though compact, with hurricane-force winds only extending 45 kilometres from its centre, Erin was expected to double or even triple in size in the coming days.
Powerful rip currents could affect the US East Coast from Florida to the mid-Atlantic next week despite the eye of the storm forecast to remain far offshore, Mr Brennan said.
Hurricane specialist and storm surge expert Michael Lowry said Erin gained strength at a pace that was "incredible for any time of year, let alone August 16th".
Mr Lowry said only four other category five hurricanes have been recorded in the Atlantic on or before August 16.
The most powerful storms tend to form later in the year, with the hurricane season typically peaking in mid-September.
In October 2005 Hurricane Wilma rocketed from a tropical storm to a category five in less than 24 hours, according to National Hurricane Center advisories from that time.
And in October 2007 Hurricane Felix took just over a day to go from a tropical storm to category five.
Including Erin, there have been 43 hurricanes that have reached category five status on record in the Atlantic said Dan Pydynowski, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, a private forecasting company.
"They're certainly rare, although this would mark the fourth year in a row that we've had one in the Atlantic basin," Mr Pydynowski said.
Conditions needed for hurricanes to reach such strength include very warm ocean water, little to no wind shear and being far from land, he said.
AP
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