Tropical Wave Could Be Next Tropical Depression

The first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic Hurricane Season, Hurricane Erin, was a doozy, having undergone explosive rapid intensification from a tropical storm to Category 5 intensity in just under 30 hours.

Erin's Genesis

In true Cabo Verde hurricane style, Erin got going very close to that archipelago and caused flooding in the islands.

At least nine deaths were attributed to Erin's rainfall, flooding and mudslides on or after August 10 before Erin even became a named storm.

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The National Hurricane Center found that the system became organized enough to be called Tropical Storm Erin the following day.

The system remained a tropical storm for several days as it traveled westward across the Atlantic, but struggled as it battled cooler waters.

Erin Became 2025's First Major Hurricane And Category 5

As Erin rode westward, it hit progressively warmer water and favorable environmental conditions. Erin began a period of explosive rapid intensification starting on August 15, going from a tropical storm to Category 5 in just under 30 hours, and from a Category 3 to a Category 5 in just under 6 hours.

Erin's pressure drop during this rapid intensification cycle was the steepest before September 1 on record.

Erin has also joined a rare group of only five hurricanes that have wind speeds of at least 145 mph by August 16 since 1970, according to Dr. Phil Klotzbach. Erin was the first Category 5 hurricane since Milton and Beryl in 2024.

Erin More Than Doubles In Size And Chills Atlantic Waters

Erin began to undergo an eyewall replacement cycle on Aug. 16, setting off a period of fluctuation in intensity and bringing the storm back to Category 4 intensity by that evening.

While Erin ultimately skirted around islands in the Caribbean, a wind gust of 57 mph was recorded on the island of Tortola in the British Virgin Islands, but sustained tropical storm force winds remained to the north of the islands.

Erin dumped up to 6 inches of rain in Puerto Rico and up to 7 inches of rain in the U.S. Virgin Islands, according to the National Weather Service.

Following the eyewall replacement cycle, Erin began to significantly grow in size. At its largest, the storm had a peak diameter for tropical-storm-force winds of 480 miles and hurricane-force winds of 150 miles.

(MORE: How Erin's Size Compared To Other Giant Hurricanes)

As Erin moved northward, the strong winds churned up the water column under the storm through a process called upwelling. Strong winds in tropical cyclones churn up seawater along their path, causing cooler water from below to rise and mix with surface water.

The result is a swath of cooler sea surface temperatures trailing behind Hurricane Erin northward through the western Atlantic Ocean.

US Impacts

(As It Happened: August 19 | August 20 | August 21 | August 22 )

While Erin never made direct landfall on the U.S., the storm's large size and intense strength allowed it to produce dangerous surf conditions and rip currents up and down the East Coast. Beaches from North Carolina to New York were closed.

More than 85 people had to be plucked from the water and rip currents several days before Erin's closest pass to the East Coast.

(MORE: Dozens Rescued From Hurricane Erin Rip Currents)

Erin’s center came as close as 200 miles east-southeast of Hatteras, North Carolina, as of 2 a.m. ET on Aug. 21.

Erin’s tropical-storm-force winds were up to 480 miles wide, or wide enough to bring tropical storm conditions to coastal North Carolina and the Virginia Tidewater, not to mention coastal flooding, high surf and rip currents along the East Coast.

Wind gusts as high as 53 mph were clocked in the Outer Banks of North Carolina, and gusts of at least 40 mph have been measured from the Virginia Tidewater to coastal Delaware and the Jersey shore.

The area hardest hit area by Erin was the Outer Banks, with reports of significant overwash of Highway 12 and also on the sound side of Ocracoke Island. A tide monitoring station in Duck, North Carolina, also reached major flood stage Thursday night.

A NOAA buoy about 170 miles east of Hatteras near the center reported winds gusting to 85 mph and up to 45-foot waves early on the morning of August 21.

By midday, strong winds downed multiple trees and power lines in New Jersey.

Erin's Atlantic, Europe Voyage

Following its scrape along the US East Coast, Erin slowly transitioned to a powerful post-tropical in the North Atlantic.

By August 25, Erin's bands of clouds and rain swept through the British Isles as the storm wound down.

Jennifer Gray is a weather and climate writer for weather.com. She has been covering some of the world's biggest weather and climate stories for the last two decades.

Jonathan Erdman is a senior meteorologist at weather.com and has been covering national and international weather since 1996. Extreme and bizarre weather are his favorite topics. Reach out to him on Bluesky, X (formerly Twitter) and Facebook.