AccuWeather Meteorologist: This Is When Tropical Storm Debby Will Hit Georgia & South Carolina

4 months ago

On "Forbes Newsroom," AccuWeather Senior Director Dan DePodwin discussed Tropical Storm Debby's path.

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Transcript

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.

AccuWeather Meteorologist: This Is When Tropical Storm Debby Will Hit Georgia & South Carolina

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