Updated @ 9:11 PM EDT on August 16, 2025
In Puerto Rico, San Juan Rapidly intensifying from a tropical storm in a single day, Hurricane Erin became a significant hurricane in Atlantic waters just north of the Caribbean on Saturday.
According to the National Hurricane Center in Miami, Erin, the first Atlantic hurricane of 2025, peaked at Category 5 before waning slightly and becoming a Category 4 storm with maximum sustained winds of 150 mph.
About 150 miles northeast of San Juan, Puerto Rico, the storm’s center was moving at 15 mph toward the west.
Although landfall was not anticipated, the hurricane’s center posed a hazard of devastating rains on nearby islands.
Erin developed into a “very powerful hurricane,” with gusts reaching 60 mph in around nine hours, according to Mike Brennen, director of the National Hurricane Center in Miami.
Erin should gradually decrease as wind shear increases, according to the Hurricane Center. Forecasters, however, said it would continue to be a powerful storm until the end of next week.
Erin is near enough to the ground to cause landslides and flooding.
The National Hurricane Center predicted that the center of the storm will stay at sea and move north of Puerto Rico.
However, the Turks and Caicos Islands, St. Martin, and St. Barts were all under tropical storm watches.
The Hurricane Center issued a warning that flash flooding, mudslides, and landslides could occur in some places due to heavy rainfall.
As usual on Saturday, residents and visitors to San Juan went for walks, worked out, and went shopping. Restaurants were crowded, and people were visible in the coastal waters even though beaches were advised to be avoided. However, parents prevented their kids from swimming.
Because the sky seemed quiet, Sarah Torres and Joanna Cornejo, who were traveling from California for a Bad Bunny show, said they chose to go to the beach and wade into the sea.
“We came out because the weather looked fine,” Torres remarked.
As a precaution, the Federal Emergency Management Agency and other U.S. government agencies sent over 200 personnel to Puerto Rico. According to Ciary P. Rez Pea, the housing secretary for Puerto Rico, 367 shelters have been assessed and are prepared to operate if necessary.
As a precaution, Bahamas officials set up a few public shelters and asked citizens to keep an eye on the hurricane.
Aarone Sargent, managing director of the Bahamas’ disaster risk management authority, stated that “these storms are very volatile and can make sudden shifts in movement.”
Erin was predicted to double or perhaps triple in size in the next few days, despite being small, with hurricane-force gusts spreading 30 miles from its core.
Although the storm’s eye is expected to stay far offshore, Brennan warned that strong rip currents could impact the U.S. East Coast from Florida to the mid-Atlantic next week.
The ‘amazing’ run from tropical storm to Category 5
Michael Lowry, a storm surge expert and hurricane specialist, described Erin’s strength growth as “incredible for any time of year, let alone Aug. 16th.”
Just four further Category 5 hurricanes have been observed in the Atlantic on or before August 16, according to Lowry.
The hurricane season usually peaks around mid-September, with the strongest storms usually developing later in the year.
In October 2005, the National Hurricane Center issued advisories for Hurricane Wilma, which in less than 24 hours grew from a tropical storm to a Category 5. Before making landfall in Florida, Wilma weakened to a Category 3 storm. Additionally, Hurricane Felix in October 2007 went from a tropical storm to a Category 5 hurricane in just over a day.
According to Dan Pydynowski, senior meteorologist at AccuWeather, a private forecasting firm, Erin is one of 43 hurricanes that have ever achieved Category 5 status in the Atlantic.
“They’re certainly rare, although this would mark the fourth year in a row that we’ve had one in the Atlantic basin,” Pydynowski stated. Hurricanes need to be far from land, have very warm ocean water, and have little to no wind shear in order to attain such strength, he said.
Scientists claim that a rising climate causes storms to intensify more quickly.
Scientists have connected climate change to the Atlantic hurricanes’ increased strengthening. Ocean temperatures are rising and the atmosphere is retaining more water vapor due to global warming, which also fuels hurricanes to intensify and release more rain.
Rapidly intensifying storms make it more difficult for meteorologists to forecast and for government organizations to prepare for catastrophes. Additionally, Hurricane Erick, a Pacific storm that hit Oaxaca, Mexico, on June 19, intensified quickly, tripling in strength in less than a day.
The Atlantic hurricane season, which runs from June 1 to November 30, is predicted to be exceptionally busy, and Erin is the fifth named storm of the season. The season is expected to see six to ten hurricanes, with three to five of those storms reaching major status with maximum sustained winds of 110 mph.
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