Hurricane Erin is expected to stay offshore as it continues to travel north along the U.S. East Coast. The North Carolina Outer Banks will be impacted with coastal flooding and rough surf.

Outer Banks

Hurricane Erin, currently a category two storm, is forecast to remain offshore as it moves northward along the U.S. East Coast. While the center of the storm is expected to pass between 175 and 225 miles off Cape Hatteras, its expanding wind field will bring tropical storm force winds, storm surge, and dangerous waves to the Outer Banks and parts of Southeast Virginia.

AccuWeather experts rate the real impact on the North Carolina coast as less than one on their six-point scale, indicating limited damage compared to the storm's wind classification. The most intense rain and wind will remain offshore, but coastal areas should expect hazardous surf, rip currents, and possible beach closures. These conditions may extend from Florida to Atlantic Canada, with the most significant impacts focused on the Outer Banks.

NC Outer Banks facing coastal impacts; Erin expected to stay offshore

This is going to be a side swipe, but still an impactful one here, even though the center of the storm remains offshore. That's a good point. AccuWeather hurricane experts have for days been talking about the majority of these impacts are going to pass off the coast as the storm, in fact, moves out to sea. But on the northwestern side of the storm, as we're going to be dealing with some storm surge and also some gusty winds, and certainly plenty in the way of dangerous waves and rip currents that you can't see that will be affecting parts of the North Carolina coastline. More about that in a moment. Here's the latest stats on Erin. Once again, appears to be in an intensification mode. Some of that wind shear changing, wind speed with height in the atmosphere has backed off a bit from this morning. So it is now a category two hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale. It could do a little bit more intensification from here as well. And it certainly reached its peak intensity over the weekend, really ramped up on Saturday. We don't expect to see a similar ramp up to meet that kind of a threshold. But as the storm moves farther north, its wind field will become a little bit larger. It's going to become larger, as storms often do as they move to the north. But notice the track here on the exclusive AccuWeather eyepath here produced by our AccuWeather hurricane experts. It turns to the right, so it turns away from the U.S. East Coast, which is why most of the impacts will stay off the coast. And again, as we look into the future here with this storm, we expect to see, we always like comparing the AccuWeather real impact scale rating for hurricanes with that of the Saffir-Simpson scale, the old-fashioned wind-only assessment of storm strength. So how does this storm play out? Sometimes, back in history, we had Tropical Storm Allison. We were a five for the AccuWeather real impact scale for that, and the Saffir-Simpson for that one was less than one. But in this case, we were kind of on the other end of the scale. Right, and this shows another one of the many ways that this is such a valuable scale, because we're talking about the impacts on land where people live, right? And so on the North Carolina coast, AccuWeather hurricane experts have assessed the AccuWeather real impact scale for hurricanes is a less than one on our six-point scale as compared to a category two hurricane in terms of just the wind as it relates to the storm way off the coast. So in this case, that assessment is that way, because as we've been talking about, the most intense rain and wind will remain off the coast. And of course, our exclusive AccuWeather real impact scale for hurricanes not only includes the wind, which is the only component considered on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale, but it considers flooding rain, storm surge, and total damage and economic loss. It's the most comprehensive way of describing the impacts, the holistic impacts of a tropical storm or a hurricane as it relates to all those different factors. And with that one characterization on our six-point scale, we're talking about some damage from wind and rain along the coast, and there can be some coastal inundation, and that's what we're talking about in a focused area here, especially across the outer banks of North Carolina up toward portions of Southeast Virginia. And most likely, the center of the storm, and this is what we were talking about with the eyepath. The eyepath becomes a little broader because of some degree of uncertainty. Again, that's not an assessment of the storm size. But the storm will grow larger with time as it moves farther north. So with the center of the storm passing, we've been saying between 175 and 225 miles offshore from Cape Hatteras, the storm's gonna be geographically large, so still some wind impacts are anticipated. Yes, and that's why, because the storm is expanding in its size as it moves to the north. Notice here, the lighter purple shade is the tropical storm force sustained winds, and then the hurricane force sustained winds, which of course are winds sustained at 74 miles per hour or greater. Those winds are gonna stay well off the coast. But notice these lighter purple shade here, that gets into the outer banks. That's the tropical storm force winds, and that's why any track of the storm a little bit further to the west will amplify those impacts. But notice the hurricane force winds stay well off the coast. So what's the biggest takeaway here, John, for anybody who's tuning in, maybe curious about impacts? Well, we're gonna be dealing with significant waves. We've talked about that, dangerous rip currents. And remember, you can't see those rip currents. So if you're in the water, those can quickly cause swimmers to get into a real serious problem. And that's not only just along the Carolina coast. That's all the way from Florida, all the way up through Atlantic Canada. So there are gonna be some beach closures in many of these areas, or restrictions around swimming because of these dangerous currents, these rip currents, and also big waves here along the U.S. East Coast with the wind and storm surge impacts confined to a narrow area here along the North Carolina coastline into Southeast Virginia, as AccuWeather hurricane experts have been talking about here since last week ahead of other sources. AccuWeather chief meteorologist John Porter. John, thanks for breaking down the details for us and giving us a little context.

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