The massive hurricane was picking up speed, traveling north at 14 mph, and its center was located about 295 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina. A tropical storm warning is in effect for parts of North Carolina and Virginia as the impacts from Erin spread northward.

The International Space Station captured the unusually large storm as it swirled near the East Coast of the United States.

Hurricane Erin is marching north and is set to bring life-threatening rip currents, destructive waves, coastal flooding and possibly beach erosion to much of the East Coast. The conditions will last through Thursday before improving later on Friday and into Saturday.

As of 7 a.m. CDT Wednesday, the center of Category 2 Hurricane Erin was located about 400 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras, N.C., or 560 miles west-southwest of Bermuda, and was tracking to the north-northwest at 13 mph. Erin’s sustained winds were 100 mph, making it a Category 2 storm.

Hurricane Erin has battered North Carolina’s Outer Banks with strong winds and waves that flooded part of the main highway and surged under beachfront homes.

Erin may strengthen into a major Category 3 hurricane Wednesday night, forecasters say. The worst impacts at the Jersey Shore will occur on Thursday.

Hurricane Erin may not be on track to make landfall, but it is still bringing dangerous and destructive impacts up and down the East Coast.

The storm is bringing dangerous conditions to parts of the coast on Wednesday, but will then turn away from the United States.

Hurricane Erin began strengthening again Wednesday as it crept closer to the mid-Atlantic coast, its outer bands brushing North Carolina’s Outer Banks as beaches closed across much of the U.S. East Coast.

The hatched areas on the National Hurricane Center's tropical outlook map indicate "areas where a tropical cyclone — which could be a tropical depression, tropical storm or hurricane — could develop," said National Hurricane Center Deputy Director Jamie Rhome.

Meteorologists are closely tracking the projected path and forecast of Hurricane Erin, which is the first hurricane to develop over the Atlantic this year.