Helene, which is expected to be a major hurricane at landfall, poses an extreme risk not just to the Florida coast but to parts of the southern Appalachians.
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00:00Joining us right now is AccuWeather hurricane expert Brian Thompson.
00:04Brian, we've been dealing with a really moisture-laden air mass with this trough across the central U.S. drifting east,
00:12and the rain is not going to hold off until the hurricane moves into land.
00:17So what's going on in the southeastern U.S.?
00:19Yeah, we're going to see some rain, Jeff, well out ahead of this storm system.
00:23You can already see here as we head into tomorrow, probably even as early as midday tomorrow,
00:28in places like Atlanta, we're going to start to see some showers and some thunderstorms.
00:32There's a front coming in from the north and west, and these fronts are notorious for helping to draw up tropical moisture.
00:38So even though Helene's still well down to the south, tomorrow we're going to see these showers and storms stream up through Georgia,
00:44even up toward the Smoky Mountains of Tennessee and North Carolina as well.
00:48And as we head into Thursday morning, you're still getting some heavy rain, so there's the potential for several inches of rain
00:54as we head right through tomorrow and into Thursday, out ahead of the main area precipitation with Helene,
01:00which likely won't move up into areas of northern Georgia and up toward the Smokies, really, until we get to Thursday night and Friday.
01:08It's kind of alarming that we may see several inches of rain with the center of the storm still 800-900 miles to the south over the eastern gulf in advance of this.
01:16So when we deal with very heavy rain, nature of 6, 7, 8, 9 inches of rain over the mountains is different from that in the flatlands or the coastal plains.
01:26So what are some of the concerns there into western North Carolina, extreme north Georgia?
01:31Yeah, definitely. When you talk about the mountains kind of funneling the water into the valley spots,
01:38so especially some of the lower elevations within the mountains across North Carolina,
01:42that's where you're going to run into some bigger problems with some heavy rain.
01:45The potential for, we're looking at maybe upwards of 8-12 inches of rain across portions of western North Carolina.
01:52Eastern parts of Tennessee, also north Georgia, some of the higher elevations north of Atlanta could pick up 8-12 inches of rain.
01:59Even the Atlanta area itself, metro Atlanta, could pick up 4-8 inches of rain by the time this wraps up into Saturday.
02:06And obviously we're going to have very severe impacts along the point of landfall as well,
02:10but sometimes these story lines that are removed from landfall kind of get lost in this shuffle,
02:15and this is going to be a high impact event that we're very concerned about.
02:18So you and others in the forecasting department here, Brian, have been on top of this.
02:24I noticed that you included an extreme risk to lives and property, not just in that small zone east of the point of landfall,
02:30but also into the southern Appalachians.
02:32Yeah, you've got kind of separate concerns here. You've got, of course, the storm surge concerns,
02:35the damaging, catastrophic wind damage that's possible right near the landfall area along the Florida Panhandle,
02:42but it's that area that I was just talking about toward the Smoky Mountains.
02:45Again, it's that prolonged period of rain and heavy rain that could go from Wednesday right on through Friday in that area,
02:53causing that flooding issue.
02:55And there's that wind concern I was talking about right in the central part of the Florida Panhandle close to the landfall point.
03:00That's where we could have some wind gusts over 120, maybe over 140 miles per hour,
03:05depending on just how much strength this storm picks up over the Gulf of Mexico,
03:09and that's going to lead to a pretty high power outage risk over the next several days as well.
03:12All right. We always appreciate your insight.
03:15AccuWeather meteorologist, you may recognize his voice from radio.
03:18In a former life, he was also a TV meteorologist, so he's still got it.
03:22Thank you very much there, Brian Thompson, AccuWeather meteorologist and hurricane expert, for joining us.
03:26Thanks, Jeff.
03:27All right. Good stuff.
03:28And as we take a look at what's going on here right now, again, we have some big concerns about the timeline
03:34and how this is going to escalate quickly.
03:36So, again, Helene continues to strengthen this evening in the northwest Caribbean.
03:41Tomorrow, we expect Wednesday to be a day of rapid intensification into a hurricane.
03:46And by late Wednesday night, probably getting close to Category 2, maybe into Category 3 status.
03:53And I suspect that by midday Thursday, we will have a major hurricane on our hands.