By Axios | Created at 2024-09-27 14:06:08 | Updated at 2024-09-30 07:32:11
2 days ago
Hurricane Helene is one of the most expansive and damaging hurricanes on record for the Southeast, owing to its unusual size and rapid intensification.
The big picture: As of Friday morning, at least three people had died as a result of the massive storm, AP reports. More than 1 million customers were without power in Florida, with at least another 2.9 million in Georgia and the Carolinas, according to poweroutage.us.
- Helene's effects extend across a wide area, causing record inland flooding in western North Carolina and unprecedented storm surge flooding in Tampa.
- The storm spared Atlanta from its strongest winds, but the center of the storm made it within 100 miles of the city as a hurricane, with the most damage occurring to the east-southeast of the city.
One stunning stat: With 140 mph maximum sustained winds, Helene was the strongest hurricane on record to make landfall in the Big Bend region of Florida, where the peninsula curves into the panhandle.
- Images shared on social media showed a massive influx of storm surge, which was predicted to be up to 20 feet above ground level, inundating small communities such as Cedar Key, Fla..
Threat level: The storm is forecast to continue to merge with another storm system over the South, losing its purely tropical characteristics as it does so.
- It will produce even more flooding rains, along with damaging winds, across the southern Appalachians and in northern Georgia on Friday.
- For example, a flash flood emergency — the most dire type of NWS flood alert — was issued Friday morning for portions of the Atlanta metro area.
- A never-before-seen expansive set of extensive flash flood emergencies are in effect for Asheville and surrounding areas in western North and South Carolina.
- "A historic rainfall event is underway for the southern Appalachians and vicinity with widespread/locally catastrophic flooding expected," the NWS forecast in Greenville-Spartanburg stated.
Zoom in: Now a tropical storm, Helene's winds are forecast to continue to weaken as it moves further into north Georgia, but hurricane force wind gusts are still likely in this region and the southern Appalachians.
- Historic flooding is underway in western North Carolina and eastern Tennessee as heavy rains that preceded the storm combine with the hurricane's tropical rainfall to yield a high threat of landslides and flooding that could eclipse past events.
- The National Weather Service warned the storm would be "One of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era." This includes Asheville, NC., where more than 11 inches had fallen in two days.
Zoom out: Hurricane Helene started the day on Thursday as a Category 1 storm, and ended up about 12 hours later as a ferocious Category 4 major hurricane.
- The National Hurricane Center accurately anticipated the rapid intensification, which for meteorology was a major advance from just several years ago.
Context: Helene's intensification through landfall in the northern Gulf Coast is part of a trend tied in part to climate change.
- It puts Helene in the company of eight other landfalling storms in the U.S. that have rapidly intensified by at least 35 mph in 24 hours prior to landfall.
- Between 1982-2016 only six storms had displayed such a ramp up in intensity before a U.S. landfall.
Due to climate change, more storms now undergo rapid intensification, and there is an amplification of the intensification rates in the Atlantic Ocean Basin.
- Climate change is also causing hurricanes to produce more rainfall than they used to a few decades ago.
- Hurricane Helene tapped energy from the hottest waters in the already record hot Gulf of Mexico, known as the Loop Current. This is the same current of ultra-warm water that supercharged Hurricane Katrina in 2005.
The bottom line: Damage wrought by Hurricane Helene stretches across at least five states, and will continue to add up on Friday and Saturday.
Editor's note: This story is developing and will be updated.
