Hurricane Erin regained its strength as a Category 4 storm on Sunday, according to the National Hurricane Center’s 11 p.m. ET update, with sustained winds recorded at 130 mph. The storm’s reach was extensive, as tropical storm-force winds extended out 230 miles. By Sunday evening, Erin was positioned less than a thousand miles southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina, and forecasters expected the system to continue strengthening while moving north and west, creating rough and hazardous conditions across large areas of the western Atlantic.
The hurricane’s sudden changes have been described as remarkable. Erin briefly became a rare Category 5 on Saturday before weakening into a larger system on Sunday as it churned north of the Caribbean. Its intensification was striking: Erin advanced from a Category 1 hurricane with 75 mph winds at 11 a.m. Friday to a Category 5 with nearly 160 mph winds in just over 24 hours. This placed Erin in the record books as one of the fastest-strengthening Atlantic hurricanes ever observed, potentially the fastest prior to September 1.
Forecasters projected Erin would avoid direct landfall, tracking north of Puerto Rico before turning north-northeast into the open Atlantic, passing between the U.S. East Coast and Bermuda. Despite not striking land directly, Erin was expected to double or even triple in size, amplifying risks along the coastline. Rip currents were forecast to begin Monday across southern U.S. beaches and extend to the Northeast later in the week. Officials warned that rip current dangers would arise before visible large surf, making it essential for beachgoers not to misjudge the conditions.
“When assessing how people in the US lost their lives from the last 10 years due to tropical storms and hurricanes, about 12% of them were due to rip currents,” said Cassandra Mora, a meteorologist with the Hurricane Center. In North Carolina, Dare County issued a local state of emergency on Sunday, mandating evacuation 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,” officials stated.
Erin’s outer bands also impacted Puerto Rico with heavy rainfall, with 2 to 4 additional inches expected through Monday. In the Turks and Caicos and eastern Bahamas, forecasts predicted up to 6 inches of rainfall through Tuesday, raising concerns of flash flooding, mudslides, and landslides. Tropical storm warnings were active across the Turks and Caicos Islands and southeast Bahamas. Puerto Rico’s governor, Jenniffer González-Colón, reported that 100,000 people were already without power as of Sunday due to the storm’s effects.
