Hurricane Erin rapidly intensified to Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Saturday morning.\u00a0\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Hurricane Erin was located at latitude 19.7\u00b0N and longitude 62.8\u00b0W which put the center about 105 miles (165 km) north of Anguilla. \u00a0\u00a0 Erin was moving toward the west at 17 m.p.h. (28 km\/h).\u00a0 The maximum sustained wind speed was 160 m.p.h. (260 km\/h) and there were wind gusts to 190 m.p.h. (305 km\/h).\u00a0 The minimum surface pressure was 917 mb.<\/p>\n
Tropical Storm Watches are in effect for\u00a0 St. Martin, St. Barthelemy, and Sint Maarten.<\/span><\/p>\n Hurricane Erin rapidly intensified to a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Saturday morning.\u00a0 A small circular eye with a diameter of 6 miles (10 km) was at the center of Erin\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 A ring of thunderstorms surrounded the eye and the strongest winds winds occurring in that ring of storms.\u00a0 Bands of showers and thunderstorms were revolving around the center of Hurricane Erin.\u00a0 Storms near the center of Erin generated strong upper level divergence that pumped large quantities of mass away from the hurricane.\u00a0 The removal of large amounts of mass caused the surface pressure to decrease rapidly.<\/p>\n The circulation around Hurricane Erin is small.\u00a0 Winds to hurricane force extend out 30 miles (50 km) from the center of Erin\u2019s circulation.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extend out 140 miles (220 km) in the northern side of Hurricane Erin.\u00a0 Winds to tropical storm force extend out 60 miles in the southern half of Erin\u2019s circulation.<\/p>\n The Hurricane Intensity Index (HII) is 35.0. The Hurricane Size Index (HSI) is 9.2 and the Hurricane Wind Intensity Size Index (HWISI) is 44.2. Hurricane Erin is similar in intensity to Hurricane Michael in 2018.\u00a0 Erin is smaller than Michael was.<\/p>\n Hurricane Erin will move through an environment that will be favorable for intensification during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 Erin will move over water where the Sea Surface Temperatures are near 29\u00b0C.\u00a0 It will move through a region where the upper level winds are weak and there will be little vertical wind shear.\u00a0 Hurricane Erin is likely to continue to intensify during the next few hours.\u00a0 However, it is likely that the inner end of a rainband will wrap around the existing eye and eyewall.\u00a0 That would create concentric eyewalls.\u00a0 It would also start an eyewall replacement cycle.\u00a0 An eyewall replacement cycle would cause Hurricane Erin to weaken, at least temporarily.<\/p>\n Hurricane Erin will move around the southern side of a high pressure system over the Atlantic Ocean.\u00a0 The high pressure system will steer Erin toward the west-northwest during the next 24 hours.\u00a0 On its anticipated track, the center of Hurricane Storm Erin will pass north of the Puerto Rico on Saturday night.<\/p>\n Bands in the southern side of Hurricane Erin are likely to bring gusty winds and locally heavy rain to the Northern Leeward Islands and to the Virgin Islands.\u00a0 Heavy rain could cause flash floods in some locations.\u00a0 Bands feeding into the southern side of Hurricane Erin could also drop heavy rain on Puerto Rico.<\/p>\n A Flood Watch is in effect for Puerto Rico.<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hurricane Erin rapidly intensified to Category 5 on the Saffir-Simpson Scale on Saturday morning.\u00a0\u00a0 At 11:00 a.m. EDT on Saturday the center of Hurricane Erin was located at latitude 19.7\u00b0N and longitude 62.8\u00b0W which put the center about 105 miles (165 km) north of Anguilla. \u00a0\u00a0 Erin was moving toward the west at 17 m.p.h. […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,2],"tags":[446,447,1689,1618,3969,650,22,3675,1074,1073,143],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22883"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=22883"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":22887,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/22883\/revisions\/22887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=22883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=22883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/jayhobgood.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=22883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}