Hurricane Erin to churn up life-threatening surf and rip currents along US East Coast and Bermuda
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After exploding in strength at a historic rate this weekend, Hurricane Erin is now a sprawling Category 4 storm churning in the Atlantic. The storm's enormous footprint is becoming the biggest concern as it threatens to drive life-threatening rip currents and towering waves toward the eastern US coastline and Bermuda.
The storm is forecast to stay well offshore, but its expansive wind field is already sending large swells outward for hundreds of miles, bringing dangerous rip currents to US shores as the storm prepares to move north.
Erin's outer rain bands have lashed Puerto Rico, triggering flash flooding and power outages, and started impacting the southeast Bahamas and the Turks and Caicos Islands early Monday, according to the National Hurricane Center. Large swells from the hurricane will reach much of the East Coast and Bermuda starting Tuesday, with conditions expected to worsen through midweek.
'Even though Erin is expected to remain far offshore, the threat to life from rip currents and high surf along our beaches is very real,' the National Weather Service office in Morehead City, North Carolina, warned in a beach hazards statement.
Erin is forecast to curve north-northeast between the US East Coast and Bermuda over the coming days, remaining offshore but strengthening again and growing even larger in size. That means its influence will be felt not through direct landfall, but through water: large, pounding surf, dangerous currents and coastal flooding during high tides.
On Sunday, Dare County in North Carolina — where the Outer Banks are located — issued a local state of emergency, which includes a mandatory evacuation order for Hatteras Island.
'Coastal flooding and ocean overwash are expected to begin as early as Tuesday, August 19, 2025 and continue through Thursday, August 21, 2025. Portions of N.C. Highway 12 on Hatteras Island will likely be impassable for several days,' according to a news release.
Bermuda also lies in Erin's path of influence, with forecasters expecting the island to see very rough seas and possibly tropical storm–force winds later this week.
Elsewhere along the US East Coast, from South Carolina to the Delmarva Peninsula and New Jersey shore, the rip current risk will climb sharply Tuesday through Thursday – even under sunny skies.
So far this year, 44 people have died from rip currents and other surf-zone hazards in the US, according to the National Weather Service. Over the past decade, rip currents have proven to be one of the top weather killers in the US, behind only heat and flooding. The weather service says rip currents usually take more lives each year than lightning, hurricanes and tornadoes put together.
With peak summer crowds still flocking to the coast, officials are urging beachgoers to stay out of the water when rip current alerts are in effect.
'This is not the week to swim in the ocean,' Dare County Emergency Management said in its evacuation order. 'The risk from surf and flooding will be life-threatening.'
The outer bands of Erin continue to produce heavy rainfall across Puerto Rico, with additional rainfall of up to 2 inches expected across the island through Monday night, according to the National Hurricane Center.
A flood watch remains in effect for the island through Monday evening, according to the National Weather Service, as the powerful storm left 100,000 people without power, Gov. Jennifer González-Colón said Sunday.
Additional rainfall of up to 6 inches is forecast over the Turks and Caicos and the eastern Bahamas through Tuesday. Flash flooding, landslides and mudslides are possible, it added. There are tropical storm warnings in effect in Turks and Caicos Islands and southeast Bahamas.
Erin's impact began over the weekend, when it logged one of the fastest intensification bursts on record in the Atlantic. In just over a day, the storm jumped from tropical-storm strength to Category 5, peaking near 165 mph on Saturday as it feasted on exceptionally warm water and favorable atmospheric conditions.
It then eased to Category 3 while undergoing an eyewall replacement cycle – a structural reset where a new, larger eyewall forms and steals energy from the old one. Winds dip during the swap, but the storm usually grows in size.
Now that the eyewall replacement is complete, Erin has re-intensified to Category 4, with a broader wind field that widens the zone of dangerous surf and rip currents.
The hurricane's rapid intensification over the weekend was a stark reminder of how quickly storms can strengthen in a warming climate. It's also unusual to see a Category 5 storm form so early in the season, particularly outside of the Gulf of Mexico.
Erin is the Atlantic's first hurricane of the season. Four other systems roamed the Atlantic basin before Erin — Andrea, Barry, Chantal and Dexter — but none were stronger than a tropical storm.
The hurricane center has already identified a tropical wave behind Erin that has a medium chance of developing into a tropical depression or tropical storm within the next seven days. It's too early to say whether this system will materialize or where it may go, but forecasters are watching it closely.
Despite Erin churning up cooler waters beneath the surface, there's still plenty of warm water for storms to tap into as sea surface temperatures remain well above average. They aren't quite as warm as the record levels reached in 2023 and 2024, but are still far warmer than they'd be in a world that wasn't heating up.
August is when the tropics usually come alive: The busiest stretch of the season typically spans from mid-August to mid-October. Forecasters expect above-average tropical activity this year.
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