Julia Hernandez
(CNN) — Category 1 Hurricane Ernesto is dealing a heavy blow to Bermuda and increasing coastal danger for much of the US East Coast after lashing Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power.
The hurricane made landfall in Bermuda early Saturday as a Category 1 storm, packing sustained winds of 136 mph and gusts of 170 kmh, according to the National Hurricane Center’s 5 a.m. ET update. A hurricane warning is in effect for the island.
The massive hurricane’s powerful winds extend hundreds of miles from its center, and while Bermuda will bear the brunt of Ernesto’s impacts, the U.S. East Coast is expected to experience dangerous rip currents and high waves through the weekend.
Ernesto’s strength late this week was driven by extremely warm Atlantic waters, a phenomenon that is becoming more frequent in a world warming due to fossil fuel pollution, but dry air interacting with the system prevented explosive strengthening.
“Hurricane conditions are expected to develop over Bermuda during the next several hours,” the NHC said Saturday morning. “Due to Ernesto’s large size and slow motion, strong winds will continue over the island for most of today.”
The center of the hurricane moved over Bermuda on Saturday, but by Friday torrential rains and tropical storm-force wind gusts were already developing over the tiny island, which is about a third the size of Washington, D.C.
Bermuda International Airport reported tropical storm force conditions with sustained winds of 65 km/h with gusts up to 100 km/h, according to the National Hurricane Center. It has already received more than 150 millimeters of rain, with an additional 25 to 75 millimeters expected on Saturday.
Tropical storm conditions will continue through Saturday night.
The strongest winds and heavy rain are likely to arrive late on Saturday. Ernesto could dump 150 to 300 mm of rain over the island through Saturday night, with the potential for isolated totals approaching 380 mm.
“This may result in significant, life-threatening flash flooding,” the National Hurricane Center warned Thursday.
Dangerous storm surge and significant coastal flooding are also expected as Ernesto approaches the island on Saturday.
Dangerous waves on the east coast
Ernesto will have a far-reaching impact despite remaining so far from major land masses.
The hurricane will create massive waves, perhaps as high as 40 feet (12 meters) in the open Atlantic that will extend for miles. These high waves will bring rough seas and dangerous rip currents to the U.S. East Coast, the Bahamas, and parts of the Caribbean through early next week.
Hurricane Ernesto. (CNN)
Along much of the U.S. Atlantic coast, the most dangerous coastal conditions will occur over the weekend, when many people flock to the beach. Ernesto “will result in very dangerous rip currents (Saturday and Sunday),” the National Weather Service in Mount Holly, New Jersey, warned Thursday.
Rip currents can exhaust even the strongest swimmers and turn deadly. At least 29 people have died from rip currents this year in the United States and its territories, according to the National Weather Service.
Beyond Bermuda, Ernesto will pass near the Atlantic coast of Canada early next week and possibly bring some rain, wind and rough seas.
Power outages persist after Ernesto
Ernesto’s center never made landfall in Puerto Rico or the U.S. Virgin Islands, but the system’s strong winds knocked out power to hundreds of thousands of people in total.
In Puerto Rico, about half of all customers on the island were at one point without power on Wednesday, according to LUMA Energy, the private company that operates power transmission and distribution in Puerto Rico. As of Friday morning, more than 200,000 remained without power.
In the U.S. Virgin Islands, just over 10,000 customers remained without power Friday morning, about 20% of tracked customers on the island, according to PowerOutage.us.
Heavy rains drenched the Virgin Islands on Tuesday night and Wednesday. More than 150 mm of rain drenched much of Puerto Rico and caused widespread flash flooding. Some localities recorded nearly 300 millimeters of rain from Ernesto: Just over 25o mm of rain fell in a 24-hour period in the mountain town of Barranquitas, according to a preliminary weather service report, while Villalba saw about 240 centimeters.
Heavy rains and flooding caused several rivers to overflow their banks in Puerto Rico and disrupted water filtration processes at several water processing plants to varying degrees, according to the island’s water authority. Even as Ernesto moved a few hundred miles away from Puerto Rico on Wednesday night, water problems worsened. More than 250,000 water customers — about 20% of total customers — were without drinking water by Friday morning, according to the island’s emergency portal system. CNN meteorologist Elliana Hebert contributed to this report.
