Hurricane Ernesto makes landfall in Bermuda, weakens to Category 1

Hurricane Ernesto weakened to a Category 1 storm overnight as it bore down on Bermuda. The eye of the storm made landfall before 5 a.m. with sustained winds of 85 mph.

Winds have been raging over the past 12 hours for much of Bermuda. The National Museum of Bermuda (on the northwest corner of the island) has a weather sensor that has recorded several wind gusts over 80 mph since last night.

Hurricane Ernesto is expected to slowly move away from Bermuda by Saturday, but the high surf and rip current threat will continue for days on the East Coast.

While Ernesto will only bring hurricane-force winds to the island early Saturday morning, winds will remain strong over the island all day due to Ernesto’s slow movement -- it is only moving at 9 mph -- and large size. Conditions are expected to gradually improve as this storm slowly pulls away from Bermuda, but they are still expecting several more hours of heavy rain and strong wind into Saturday night.

Large and destructive waves have been lashing the coast of Bermuda on Saturday.

Rainfall amounts of 6 to 9 inches are expected in Bermuda for storm-total accumulation. This amount of rain will likely result in considerable life-threatening flash flooding, especially in low-lying areas of the island.

For the U.S. Atlantic coastline there is a high risk of rip tides all weekend, and there are large breaking waves up to 8 feet possible, resulting in high surf advisories.

The rip current risk will persist throughout this weekend up and down the east coast, with crashing waves of 4 to 8 feet across many Atlantic-facing beaches. Swimmers are urged to listen to local officials and lifeguards, as the intensity of these rip currents can overpower even the strongest swimmers. Several beaches, like some of those in New York, have closed entirely this weekend due to the dangerous rip current threat.

This threat lasts into Monday but will gradually improve by the middle of the week.

Ernesto will continue moving north and northeast with the storm expected to be a dying hurricane as is moves off the coast of Newfoundland, Canada on Monday night.

While no new storms are on the horizon for the next week, September is the peak of hurricane season and more storms are anticipated.