Maine Will Want to Keep An Eye On Hurricane Erin

It's been more than 50 years since a storm with a hurricane designation made landfall in Maine. That happened in 1969, when Hurricane Gerda made landfall as a category 1 near Machias.

Most Mainers of a certain age remember Hurricane Bob making landfall in the state. Bob did strike Maine but by that time had been downgraded to a tropical storm.

It's important to tie Hurricane Bob and some more recent threats along the eastern seaboard together in order to understand why people in Maine (as well as New England) should be paying attention to a tropical storm gathering strength right now.

Erin Will Become a Hurricane This Week and Models Are Predicting Its Path

Most weather models and meteorologists are in agreement that tropical storm Erin will be a hurricane by the end of this week. The question is not how powerful the storm will be, it's where the storm might be headed.

Right now, predictive models have Hurricane Erin staying off the coast of the United States far enough that it wouldn't have any destructive impacts. But many meteorologists are cautiously worried that Hurricane Erin will 'recurve', moving the track west and line up the east coast of the U.S. to be hit hard.

Other Major Storms Have Followed The Same Path As Erin, Including Hurricane Bob

Will history repeat itself? Back in 1991, Hurricane Bob transformed into a hurricane off the coast of Florida. The category 3 storm pulverized the coast of the Carolinas before hitting Long Island, Rhode Island and Massachusetts. All of that happened in August.

Which is why Maine should be keeping a close eye on Erin. The ocean conditions are ripe for a major storm to make it all the way up the east coast.

More will be known about this hurricane over the next few days and better predictive models will come into focus by this weekend.