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Hurricane Erin strengthened to a Category 5 Saturday morning in the mid-Atlantic, with sustained winds of up to 160 mph. It is moving across the Atlantic on a track toward Bermuda, but it is expected to take a turn north and east, avoiding direct impact with the U.S. coast.

Hurricane Erin strengthens to Category 5, as wind speeds rapidly increase to 160 mph

<p>Wow, what a morning it's been for Hurricane Aaron. We started early this morning in the 5 o'clock advisory winds at 130 MPH, which makes it a CAT 3. So there was rapid intensification overnight last night, Category 3. And then this morning, it's been incredible. Just before 6 o'clock, the hurricane hunters uh sent back information saying that it really strengthened winds at 1:40 and a CAT 4. And now with the 11 o'clock advisory, we have winds at 1:55, at 1:57, this is a Category 5 storm, and it is forecast to be Category 5 for the next couple of days. It's 105 miles north of Anguilla right now, and it is having some impact on um some of the northern Leeward Islands, especially the Virgin Islands. They're likely to have some flooding, possibly some mudslides, but they're not going to see landfall out of this storm, fortunately. Um, that's a, that's a relief with this very, very powerful storm. So kind of brushing by, um, just creating some impacts. There, but not full force Category 5. So we'll move it on ahead, and by the time we get to this evening, um, all the way through early on Sunday morning, it's Category 5. But it is at that point away from land, not that some of the Caribbean islands won't have some minimal impact, but it's, again, nobody's likely to take a full hit from the storm. It does remain Category 4 now, all the way through 8 a.m. on Wednesday. So a big powerful storm sitting off the coast of North Carolina for Wednesday night into early Thursday. And it moves just past Bermuda, Bermuda likely to have some fairly significant impact from this, but not a direct landfall. Um, for North Carolina, we will likely have rip current danger. We'll have some overwatch probably um along the outer banks. Uh, we'll have some windy conditions, but it'll be more tropical storm force conditions for us, because the center of circulation will be hundreds of miles offshore, and it looks like that will be the case all the way through. We take a look at our hurricane model plots, and they're nicely, uh, All packed together closer to Bermuda than they are to North Carolina, except for just a couple of them. But, um, that brings us a lot of confidence that most of them are tightly packed together. Now, in order to kick this thing offshore, we do have to have a front that comes through. Right now, the timing for that looks good, um, but as strong a storm as this is, I would highly recommend you continuing to check with us on WRIL.com, on our WRL streaming platform, News Plus, and of course, on WRELT.</p>

Hurricane Erin advisory, movement as of 11 a.m. Saturday, August 16, 2025

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