Tropical Storm Erin intensified to become the first Atlantic hurricane of 2025, with Caribbean residents bracing for what forecasters warn could become a dangerous Category 3 storm as early as Sunday.

The National Hurricane Center confirmed Hurricane Erin reached sustained winds of 75 mph Friday morning, with the storm currently located approximately 460 miles east of the nearest Caribbean islands, NBC News reported.

Hurricane #Erin Advisory 17: Erin Becomes the First Hurricane of the 2025 Season. Expected to Pass Near Or North of the Leeward Islands On Saturday. https://t.co/tW4KeGdBFb

— National Hurricane Center (@NHC_Atlantic) August 15, 2025

According to the Weather Channel, next week, “Erin is expected to pass between North Carolina and Bermuda,” with several northern Caribbean islands likely impacted, and forecasters are noting there remains some uncertainty regarding the hurricane’s impact on the U.S. East Coast.

“Erin is turning toward the west-northwest as it strengthens. This path will take Erin toward progressively warmer waters, which, in tandem with low wind shear, should allow Erin to become a major hurricane this weekend as it makes a close brush, or travels just north of the Caribbean islands,” The Weather Channel added.

Given its current trajectory through warm water in the open ocean, the National Hurricane Center projects Hurricane Erin reaching Category 4 status as early as next week.

JUST IN: Erin has been upgraded to a Category 1 Hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 75 mph.

It is the first hurricane of the 2025 Atlantic season.

Erin is forecast to become a Major Hurricane late weekend/early next week, topping out as a Category 4. pic.twitter.com/FeSdBfnHWd

— MyRadar Weather (@MyRadarWX) August 15, 2025

Tropical Storm Watches have been issued for several Caribbean islands, including Anguilla, Barbuda, St. Barthelemy, St. Martin, Saba, St. Eustatius, and Sint Maarten, meaning tropical storm conditions are possible within the next 48 hours, Fox Weather reported.

The system is forecast to dump between two and four inches of rain in its early stages, with isolated areas potentially receiving up to six inches, potentially triggering flash/urban flooding, landslides, and mudslides across the northernmost Leeward Islands, the U.S. and British Virgin Islands, and southern and eastern Puerto Rico, per NBC.

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The disturbance that eventually became Hurricane Erin caused significant destruction in the African Cabo Verde islands earlier this week. Images from the island of São Vicente showed extensive flooding with muddy water rushing through streets and damaging homes, killing multiple people, per Fox Weather.

Emergency management officials in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands are urging residents to review hurricane plans and secure emergency supplies despite forecasts showing the storm’s center remaining offshore.

Washington, D.C., has officially lost its status as an illegal alien sanctuary city amid the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime in the nation’s capital.

Attorney General Pam Bondi stripped the city’s Chief of Police Pamela Smith of her power this week, in the wake of President Donald Trump’s executive order, instead naming Drug Enforcement Administration Administrator Terry Cole as the new emergency police commissioner.

Bondi also rescinded three orders from the city government limiting law enforcement’s ability to cooperate with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). The Attorney General pledged that the district will not be a safe haven for illegal aliens in an interview in which she accused the city’s leadership of “shielding” illegal aliens from the law.

Bondi went on to assert that D.C. politicians are “trying to protect criminal aliens” and that “criminals are going to flee to DC” if the nation’s capital maintains its sanctuary city policies. “We’re not going to let that happen.”

The most recent of the three orders rescinded by Bondi prevented D.C. police from using databases to inquire about the immigration status of people in the nation’s capital.

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“Members shall not make inquiries into any person’s immigration status for the purpose of determining whether they have violated the civil immigration laws or for the purpose of enforcing civil immigration laws,” read the order, which was implemented just last week.

“To the extent that provisions in this Order conflict with any existing MPD directives, those directives are hereby rescinded,” Bondi wrote.

“So, yes, you must comply. You must give the information to our ICE, to our Homeland Security officers,” Bondi said, addressing police officers in the nation’s capital. “If they have information of an illegal alien living in DC, they must give us that information.”

Now the city’s leadership must obtain approval from Cole before issuing new directives. Leaders in the city government have pushed back, with Democrat Mayor Muriel Bowser’s attorney general, Brian Schwalb, issuing a legal opinion contesting the Trump administration’s crackdown on crime in the city.

“It is my opinion that the Bondi Order is unlawful, and that you are not legally obligated to follow it,” Schwalb wrote in a memo to D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Chief Pamela Smith.

The nascent legal fight comes as federal authorities and the National Guard have begun patrolling the streets of the nation’s capital in an effort to curtail the “out of control” crime that Trump seeks to end.