Hurricane Erin strengthens to Category 5
Threat level: An earlier advisory from the hurricane center was already forecasting "life-threatening surf and rip currents," and a new advisory is expected later Saturday afternoon.
The storm is forecast to produce heavy rainfall through Sunday, with those dangerous surf and rip currents impacting areas along the East Coast, Bahamas' beaches and Atlantic Canada next week, per the National Hurricane Center.
The latest: Erin, which on Friday was at a Category 1, was over the Atlantic Ocean, northeast of the Caribbean islands, as of 11 a.m. Saturday.
It was moving toward the west near 17mph, a direction it is expected to continue in this afternoon, turn toward west/ northwest Saturday night and decrease in forward speed, turning toward the north next week.
"Interests in Bermuda should continue to monitor the progress of Erin since there is a risk of strong winds, heavy rainfall, and high surf by the middle part of next week," the National Hurricane Center said.
Zoom in: Hurricanes are categorized by wind speed on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which deems a Category 5 storm one with 157 mph sustained winds or higher.
That means "catastrophic damage will occur" including a high percentage of framed homes destroyed, downed trees and power poles and power outages lasting weeks or months, per the wind scale.
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New York Times
43 minutes 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.
NBC News
3 hours ago
- NBC News
Hurricane Erin strengthens to Category 5 storm
Hurricane Erin has strengthened to a Category 5 storm and is projected to move between the U.S. East Coast and Bermuda. The storm is not expected to hit land, but nearby islands are warning of flooding and landslides.
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.
