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 1100 AM AST (1500 UTC), the center of Hurricane Epsilon was located near latitude 37.9 North, longitude 60.3 West. Epsilon is moving toward the northeast near 13 mph (20 km/h). A rapid acceleration to the northeast is expected to occur later today through Sunday, with a fast northeast to eastnortheast motion forecast to occur Sunday evening into early next week.

Maximum sustained winds are near 80 mph (130 km/h) with higher gusts. Only slow weakening is expected over the weekend. Epsilon is forecast to become a large and powerful posttropical cyclone on Sunday.

Hurricaneforce winds extend outward up to 60 miles (95 km) from the center and tropicalstormforce winds extend outward up to 405 miles (650 km).

The estimated minimum central pressure is 958 mb (28.29 inches).

The appearance of Epsilon has changed little since early this morning, with satellite images revealing an eye feature embedded in a small area of deep convection, while a much larger comma-shaped pattern extends several hundred miles to the north of the center. A drifting buoy array that was placed ahead of the hurricane has provided useful information on the intensity of Epsilon. At 1100 UTC, a buoy located very near the center of the cyclone reported a pressure of 957.6 mb. This pressure was much lower than the previous estimated pressure of 972 mb, which was made without the availability of the buoy data. Therefore, it is likely that Epsilon was a stronger hurricane last night. Based on this data, the initial intensity has been adjusted upward to 70 kt, and this value could still be conservative based on typical high-latitude pressure-wind relationships.

Epsilon has made its anticipated turn to the northeast and is now moving at 050/11 kt. The cyclone should begin accelerating toward the northeast later today in the mid-latitude westerlies, reaching a forward motion of about 40 kt to the northeast or east-northeast by Sunday evening. This fast motion is expected to continue through early next week. The NHC track forecast is essentially unchanged from the previous one, and is in good agreement with the tightly clustered track guidance.

The cyclone is forecast to move over waters of about 24-26 degrees C for the next 12 h or so, while encountering cooler temperatures aloft. This should allow Epsilon to maintain its current intensity today. After 12 h, the water temperatures below the cyclone are expected to decrease below 20 degrees C, while the system interacts with an mid- to upper-level trough. These factors should cause the inner-core convection to dissipate while the system transitions to a large and powerful extratropical cyclone sometime on Sunday. This cyclone is then expected to merge 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.