Hurricane Erin Explosively Strengthening
Hurricane Erin is currently at Category 4 hurricane with sustained wind speeds of 145 mph and gusting to even higher levels. NOAA Hurricane Hunters flying into the storm also found that the minimum pressure was down to 935 mb as of 8:00 am AST on August 16. Erin is literally strengthening as I write this. In the 5:00 am AST update from the National Hurricane Center, sustained winds were 130 mph. These numbers place Hurricane Erin at Category 4 on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale. and very close to a Category 5 storm. It also represents yet another recent example of explosive rapid intensification.
Hurricane Erin rapidly intensified in the last 24 hours and exhibits a clear eye and eyewall on Saturday morning.
NOAA and Tropical Tidbits website
Candidly, when I looked at the satellite presentation of Erin this morning, I said, 'Wow.' It had that eerily perfect structure meteorologists like me dread. Such attributes include a well-defined eye, an intact eyewall, and a healthy outflow region in the upper part of the atmosphere. It also has something else that concerns me. There is plenty of very warm water in the path of the storm. In fact, some of the warmest sea surface temperatures are still in front of the storm.
Will Erin make a run for Category 5, which means sustained winds greater than 157 mph? Here's what the National Hurricane Center is saying about Hurricane Erin in its 8:00 am AST update on August 16. They wrote, " Erin is expected to continue to rapidly strengthen over the next 12 hours while it remains in favorable conditions of warm water, low wind shear, and in an environment of high moisture…. Strengthening could
continue through tonight." With that statement, I am certainly not ruling out Category 5, but it really doesn't matter. Category 4 is strong enough. Thankfully, wind shear will increase early next week.
Rapid intensification is defined as a storm gaining 35 mph of wind speed in less than 24 hours. At 5 pm on Friday, Erin was a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds. It increased by 70 mph in 15 hours according to Washington Post and MyRadar Weather Radar meteorologist Matthew Cappucci. Rapid intensification is a big deal, but I continually see storms going well beyond the rate for RI. My hunch, as an expert in this field, is that our current metrics of 'weather extremes' like RI and '100-year flood' are becoming obsolete. Thankfully, Erin will not make a direct hit on the U.S., but several RI hurricanes have in recent years. They include Hurricane Ida (2021), Hurricane Ian (2022), Hurricane Beryl (2024), Hurricane Milton (2024), Hurricane Helene (2024), and several others. I wrote last year about how RI near the coast creates a new reality for hurricane planning and response.
Forecast track for Hurricane Erin as of August 16, 2025.
NOAA
Erin is expected to pass between Bermuda and the East Coast. NHC went on to say, 'Although Erin is a somewhat compact hurricane now, the models are in strong agreement that the system will grow in size over the next several days.' By Wednesday it could be two or three times its current size. That means the U.S. East Coast could certainly experience large swells and an elevated rip current threat.
As I close, it is worth mentioning that a small disturbance is currently producing showers and thunderstorms off the North Carolina coast. It is not Hurricane Erin and only has a 10% chance of further development in the coming days. However, it certainly will be a nuisance for people along the Carolina and Virginia coasts this weekend.
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New York Times
an hour ago
- New York Times
Erin, First Atlantic Hurricane This Year, Quickly Strengthens to Category 5
As Erin moves west toward the Caribbean islands and the official forecast from the National Hurricane Center shows the storm likely beginning to curve — potentially even away from the United States — the center's forecasters have exercised caution, consistently warning that there is a 'greater than normal uncertainty' about where the storm will go after the weekend. But why? The uncertainty has to do with quite a few factors, but a main one is the output of the computer weather models that help meteorologists make their forecasts. Specifically, it's a type of map called a spaghetti plot showing where a computer simulation predicts the center of the storm will be five, seven or even 14 days in the future. These mapped model outputs get their name from their resemblance to long strands of pasta. The closer the lines are together, the more confidence forecasters have in what the storm might do, because it means many of the models agree with one another. For the next few days, there is a pretty reliable consensus that the storm will track northwest. But how much and when it might turn north or even northeast are still big questions. 'The confidence in the predicted location is less at, say, five days, than at two days,' said Richard Pasch, an expert at the Hurricane Center. 'In the case of Erin, the model spread increases beyond five days, but not unusually so.' 'It should be noted,' he added, 'that the typically greater uncertainty in the forecasts at six and seven days is the main reason why the National Hurricane Center does not currently issue official forecasts at these longer time ranges.' In 2017, Hurricane Irma, which formed in a similar position to Erin's, was forecast to make a similar curve, but instead it kept moving west, hitting the Caribbean islands and eventually disrupting the west coast of Florida. And Erin is currently in a similar position in the Atlantic Ocean to where Hurricane Lee was in 2023, which did make a turn, allowing it to pass over cooler waters and weaken before hitting Canada. Then there was Hurricane Gloria in 1985, another storm with a similar path to Erin's, which knocked out power to millions of customers and disrupted the lives of millions of people from North Carolina to New England. Previous storm paths The New York Times 'I thought a Gloria track might be possible, but it is looking pretty unlikely that we will see a U.S. landfall from Erin,' Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane expert at Colorado State University, said on Thursday afternoon. One of the hardest parts of any hurricane forecast is trying to predict when a storm will turn and how much of a turn it might make. Forecasters like Mr. Klotzbach look for a pattern to help build their confidence around where a storm is most likely to go. The computer models typically run four times a day. After each, forecasters look to see if there have been changes from the last one. Consistency between outputs is one thing forecasters watch for. But if there is a significant change, they usually wait for another model run to make substantial adjustments to the guidance they turn around and share with the public. They aren't just worried about where the storm will go — they are also concerned about how intense the storm might become. While forecasters can use one model to monitor intensity, they usually prefer to look at all of them. To do this, they often plot different forecast intensities on a chart that progresses over time. This line plot gives forecasters an idea of what could happen. Similar to the map plots, the tighter the lines are together between models, the more confident the forecasters are about the intensity. Sometimes they might say the official forecast is below the model guidance, or, as happened Thursday morning, they may say the official forecast is below some of the guidance. This suggests that some models indicate Erin could strengthen more than expected over the next five days. As of Thursday afternoon, the Hurricane Center is saying Erin could grow at least as strong as Category 3 by next week.
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
Hurricane Erin explodes into Cat 5 storm and is expected to double - even triple
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.
CNN
4 hours ago
- CNN
First major hurricane of the season intensifies to Category 5
Hurricane Erin has become a rare and 'catastrophic' Category 5 hurricane with sustained winds near 160 mph, according to the National Hurricane Center.
