Hurricane Erin will cause a high risk of rip currents along the Lowcountry coastline through the end of the week despite its turn away from the southeast U.S. coast. Live 5 First Alert Meteorologist Joey Sovine said the storm is going to create dangerous ocean conditions,

If a storm is a Category 3, 4 or 5, it is deemed a "major" hurricane due to the potential for "significant loss of life and damage," the National Hurricane Center says. Hurricanes that fall into categories 1 or 2 are still considered dangerous, the center says.

How does the Saffir-Simpson scale work? The scale has five categories ranging from Category 1 — with winds from 74 mph to 95 mph to Category 5 — with sustained winds in excess of 155 mph.

The longstanding hurricane rating system, the Saffir-Simpson Scale, only takes into account sustained wind speeds and not the full devastating impact of a hurricane.

Erin a dangerous, large major hurricane. Erin will move east of us through this week leaving us no direct impacts however a DANGEROUS rip current risk this week. At 11 pm, the center of Hurricane Erin was locatednear latitude 27.

Simpson assigned a range of wind speeds and storm surges for each category, and the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale was born. The NHC released the scale to the public in 1973 and began ...

Hurricane Erin reached the maximum intensity on the Saffir-Simpson scale last Saturday (16), becoming a category 5 storm with winds of up to 260 km/h (161 mph).

Travelers on the Outer Banks should be aware of possible disruptions next week caused by Hurricane Erin as it intensified into a Category 5 hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson Wind Scale overnight,