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Erin strength­ened in­to a pow­er­ful Cat­e­go­ry 4 hur­ri­cane in the Caribbean on Sat­ur­day and con­tin­ues to in­ten­si­fy, the Na­tion­al Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter said.

The storm is cur­rent­ly 150 miles (240 kilo­me­ters) north­east of An­guil­la with max­i­mum sus­tained winds of 145 mph (230 kph). It is mov­ing west-north­west at 20 mph (31 kph).

It is cur­rent­ly not fore­cast to hit land, but strong winds are af­fect­ing near­by is­lands, prompt­ing fore­cast­ers to warn of pos­si­ble flood­ing, land­slides and mud­slides. The Hur­ri­cane Cen­ter said it will even­tu­al­ly swerve away from the con­ti­nen­tal Unit­ed States.