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.

At 500 AM AST (0900 UTC), the center of Hurricane Epsilon was located near latitude 36.9 North, longitude 62.0 West. Epsilon is moving toward the northnortheast near 12 mph (19 km/h). A turn toward the northeast is expected later today. Epsilon is then forecast to continue moving northeastward with quickly increasing forward speed by this evening, which will continue through early next week.

Maximum sustained winds have decreased to near 75 mph (120 km/h) with higher gusts. Only slow weakening is expected over the weekend. Epsilon is forecast to become a large and powerful posttropical cyclone early next week.

Hurricaneforce winds extend outward up to 45 miles (75 km) from the center and tropicalstormforce winds extend outward up to 355 miles (575 km).

The estimated minimum central pressure is 972 mb (28.71 inches).

Epsilon's convective pattern has continued to devolve into more of a large comma-shaped pattern rather than the classical circular structure of a mature tropical cyclone. There is a ragged remnant eye, however, which has provided a good continuity feature to track. The initial intensity has been lowered to 65 kt based on a Dvorak satellite current intensity (CI) estimate of T4.0/65 kt from TAFB. The initial motion estimate is north-northeastward, or 015/10 kt. Epsilon is now located north of the mid-oceanic subtropical ridge axis, so acceleration into the faster mid-latitude westerlies is expected to begin by this evening, if not sooner, and continue through the weekend. The latest NHC model guidance is in excellent agreement on this developing track scenario. The new NHC official track forecast is almost identical to the previous advisory track, and lies down the middle of the tightly packed simple- and corrected-consensus track model envelope. Epsilon will be moving off of a relatively warm Gulfstream eddy (26.5 deg C sea-surface temperature/SST) in the next 6 h or so, which should result in continued slow weakening through the weekend. By 36 h, SSTs are expected to drop sharply to less than 20 deg C, causing the complete erosion of any remaining inner-core convection and resultant transition to a large and powerful extratropical low. The post-tropical cyclone will continue to produce a large area of gale- and storm-force winds right up until the time that it merges with a larger extratropical low over the far northern Atlantic by late Monday or Tuesday. That low pressure system will likely produce hazardous conditions over portions of far North Atlantic through the middle of next week.