Even though Erin is expected to stay hundreds of miles offshore, its impacts are forecast to worsen as it crawls northward and makes its closest approach to the U.S. mainland. Erin was generating waves of 35 feet or more at an ocean buoy east-northeast of the Bahamas on Aug. 19, creating swells and stirring up a broad swath of the ocean.

Hurricane Erin continues to churn in the Atlantic waters hundreds of miles off the U.S., prompting officials to close beaches along the East Coast from the mid-Atlantic to the Northeast.