1. Dangerous and potentially life-threatening surf and rip currentsare expected along the coasts of Bermuda, the Bahamas, the GreaterAntilles, the Leeward Islands, the east coast of the United States,and Atlantic Canada during the next couple of days.

There are no coastal watches or warnings in effect.

SURF: Large swells generated by Epsilon will affect Bermuda, the Bahamas, the Greater Antilles, the Leeward Islands, the east coast of the United States, and Atlantic Canada during the next few days. These swells are likely to cause lifethreatening surf and rip current conditions. Please consult products from your local weather office.

t 500 AM AST (0900 UTC), the center of Hurricane Epsilon was located near latitude 33.1 North, longitude 61.6 West. Epsilon is moving toward the north near 8 mph (13 km/h). A generally northward motion with increasing forward speed is expected through early Saturday, with an even faster motion toward the northeast later that day. The center of Epsilon will continue to move away from Bermuda.

Maximum sustained winds are near 85 mph (140 km/h) with higher gusts. Some fluctuations in strength could occur for the next day or so before gradual weakening begins on Saturday.

Epsilon remains a large storm system. Hurricaneforce winds extend outward up to 15 miles (30 km) from the center and tropicalstormforce winds extend outward up to 255 miles (405 km).

The estimated minimum central pressure is 968 mb (28.59 inches).

Although Epsilon is moving over 25.5 deg C sea-surface temperatures (SST), the hurricane has continued to generate deep convection around the small 15-nmi-wide eye. Upper-level outflow also remains impressive in all quadrants, but especially in the northern semicircle where a pronounced poleward outflow channel has become established. The initial intensity remains at 75 kt based on a Dvorak classifications from TAFB and SAB yielding a Current Intensity (CI) number of T4.5/77 kt. The 34-kt and 50-kt wind radii were expanded based on recent ASCAT scatterometer wind data between 0100-0300 UTC.Epsilon is now moving northward, or 360/07 kt. The hurricane is forecast to continue moving northward today around the western periphery of a deep-layer subtropical ridge located east of the cyclone. On Saturday, Epsilon is expected to turn northeastward and accelerate ahead of an approaching shortwave trough and associated frontal system that will be moving off the U.S. east coast on Sunday. That motion will take Epsilon over increasingly cooler SSTs as low as 20 deg C by Sunday morning, resulting in extratropical transition by 60 h, if not sooner. The new NHC official track forecast is very similar to the previous advisory track, and lies close to the middle of the tightly packed simple- and corrected- consensus models.The current relatively low southerly vertical wind shear of about 10 kt is forecast to gradually increase to more than 20 kt by this evening. Although Epsilon will be moving over a modestly warm oceanic eddy today, which could result in some brief restrengthening of the cyclone, the official intensity forecast calls for the intensity to remain steady for the next 36 h, followed by slow weakening thereafter due to the hurricane moving over near-20 deg C SSTs by 48 hours. By 60 hours, the global models and the GFS- and ECMWF-based SHIPS guidance indicate that Epsilon will have undergone extratropical transition over the far north Atlantic. Afterward, the global models continue to show Epsilon getting absorbed by a larger extratropical cyclone at the higher latitudes, resulting in a very powerful low developing with a central pressure near 940 mb. That low then moves eastward, possibly menacing northern Europe by the middle of next week.

The forecast wind radii, which show the cyclone expanding over thenext few days, are in good agreement with the dynamical consensusradii guidance, RVCN.