Hurricane Erin weakens to Category 1 as it moves away from east coast

Hurricane Erin veered away from the U.S. East Coast on Friday, but forecasters warned that strong winds and swells generated by the storm could affect the Atlantic coastline over the next few days.

Coastal flooding was expected around high tides along portions of the U.S. mid-Atlantic and New England coasts through Friday night, making some roads impassable, the National Hurricane Center said.

Officials from Florida to Maine have urged people to stay out of the water, and some beaches have closed entirely because life-threatening surf and rip currents were possible, making swimming especially dangerous for the rest of the week.

Erin was downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane early Friday and was expected to become a post-tropical cyclone by Friday night. All tropical storm and storm surge warnings were discontinued in the United States.

Wind gusts of tropical-storm force were possible in southeastern Massachusetts early Friday. In North Carolina, where a storm surge warning was active and a state of emergency had been declared Thursday, there were no reports of widespread damage.

Erin is the first hurricane of the Atlantic season, though three other areas across the ocean are also being monitored for development by forecasters at the hurricane center. This is the time of year when meteorologists expect to see heightened tropical activity. One of those areas is likely to form into a named storm and follow a similar path to Erin but would be much smaller.

The other possible storms that forecasters are monitoring are farther east, and there is little confidence among forecasters about whether they will form and where they might go.

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.