Hurricane Erin is over 500 miles away from South Florida as of Wednesday afternoon, but the extreme size of the storm is still impacting the wind direction locally, and spreading wildfire smoke across the area.

Hurricane Erin brings swells to Florida. It's ideal for surfing but dangerous for beachgoers who see blue skies, but don't realize the dangers.

Hurricane Erin is forcing evacuations on North Carolina’s Outer Banks as it churns in the Atlantic where high winds and heavy rain are pelting the Turks and Caicos Islands and parts of the Bahamas.

Forecasters are confident it will curl north and away from the eastern U.S., but tropical storm and surge watches were issued for much of North Carolina’s Outer Banks.

Erin’s surf and storm surge could cause erosion along sections of the Florida and East Coast and shapes up as potentially worse for North Carolina’s barrier islands, which are under mandatory evacuation orders ahead of the four feet of storm surge and 20-foot offshore waves Erin is expected to bring.

Hurricane Erin underwent rapid intensification to become a Category 5 storm in just hours. It has since weakened to a Category 4 status.

Erin intensified rapidly during the early hours of Saturday. It went from being a tropical storm on Friday morning, with maximum sustained winds of 70 mph, to a category 5 hurricane by 11 a.m. on Saturday,