AccuWeather Meteorologist: This Is When Tropical Storm Debby Will Hit Georgia & South Carolina
On "Forbes Newsroom," AccuWeather Senior Director Dan DePodwin discussed Tropical Storm Debby's path.
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NewsTranscript
00:00As you said, Debbie's moving on up to Georgia as well as South Carolina.
00:04So when exactly can those residents be expecting to see that impact?
00:10So we expect the impact to be a long-lasting impact, really from late Monday night into
00:15Tuesday, Wednesday, and in some places continuing Thursday as well as Debbie just slowly moves
00:21up the coast.
00:22It may go back offshore for a time and then make a second landfall.
00:25We would not expect that landfall to have a significant amount of wind with it, but
00:29there could be some strong winds very close to that point of landfall.
00:32Again though, the fact that it's going to take three or four days for it to go from
00:35the Florida Panhandle to North Carolina is very concerning, and that's the reason that
00:40the flooding rainfall is going to be the most or the largest impact from Debbie.
00:45Can you talk a little bit why the slow-moving storm is concerning you more?
00:50Yeah, absolutely, Brittany.
00:54Start that again.
00:56Absolutely Brittany.
00:57We are concerned that the slow movement of storms, there's a long history unfortunately
01:01of tropical systems that are slow-moving causing significant, in some cases catastrophic flooding.
01:07Residents of the Carolinas are unfortunately familiar with Florence in 2018, which set
01:10the record for amount of rainfall from a tropical system, both in South Carolina and North Carolina.
01:16Debbie may get close to those totals, which were on the order of two feet of rain or even
01:20more in some places.
01:21So anytime you have slow movement with a lot of moisture, which is what you have in a tropical
01:24system, there's significant concern for flooding.
01:29And we may have to also watch farther north into the Mid-Atlantic and maybe the Northeast
01:34come this weekend for heavy rain from what is Debbie as it moves in that direction later
01:38on this week.
01:39What's your advice for people who are perhaps in Georgia or perhaps in South Carolina on
01:43vacation, don't live there year-round, but they're facing the impact of Tropical Storm
01:48Debbie in the upcoming days?
01:50Absolutely.
01:51So the impact of Debbie in the next couple days will obviously be a significant one to
01:56those who are either vacationing or living in the Carolinas.
01:58If you, really no matter who you are, please pay attention to local officials, heed all
02:03evacuation orders.
02:04If you are living in a location or if you're visiting there, know your different sort of
02:09evacuation routes, how much sort of where you are in terms of flooding and what type
02:14of flooding would be an impact to you.
02:17There's obviously a difference between storm surge flooding if you're near the coast where
02:20there can be a couple of feet of storm surge where that ocean rises up because of the significant
02:24push of water inland that's associated with tropical storms.
02:28But then there's the combination of that with what is called freshwater flooding where it's
02:31raining very heavily for a long period of time.
02:34And in places like Charleston and Savannah, it doesn't take a lot of rain there to cause
02:38flooding without a tropical system.
02:40They've seen significant flooding in recent years due to those situations.
02:44And because they're close to the water, sometimes it's hard for the water to discharge out into
02:48the ocean because of the fact that the water in the ocean is already higher due to that
02:51storm surge.
02:52That's another reason sort of that combination between ocean flooding and freshwater flooding.
02:56That's another reason why we're concerned or so concerned about the flooding risk in
02:59the Carolinas.