Hurricane Florence is approaching the Carolina coast today, and there is some good news and a lot of bad news.
The good news is that we may avoid some of the worst wind damage. Sustained winds were most recently measured at 110 mph, and that’s obviously better than 130+. Wind was never the primary threat, but every little bit of relief is welcome.
The bad news is…bad. The lower core wind speed is nice, but it comes with a much bigger storm. And size matters. The wind field has expanded considerably, and the wall of water being pushed by the storm has also grown. Tropical storm-force winds extend an insane 200 miles from the eye, and hurricane-force winds extend 80 miles. That is a massive, massive storm.
The track is also bad. In a true fluke, there are “blocking ridges” – areas of high pressure – spread in perfect alignment across North America such that Florence is likely to slow down, possibly stall, and then grind its way to the *southwest* into South Carolina. This storm will have 1-2 days to dump rain on the area before it finally exits this weekend. The exact location of landfall (the point where the lowest pressure in the eye of the storm meets land) is hard to pinpoint. It may be on the North Carolina shore, or there may not be a landfall until late Friday or early Saturday in South Carolina. The details will matter for any single location, but the big picture is pretty clear. Here are the threats that are extremely likely to develop:
- A deadly storm surge along the SC-NC coast. It could be only a few feet toward Charleston, but it could be 6-12+ feet in parts of North Carolina.
- I don’t think it has been verified, but there is a small town on a barrier island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina that is only 3-5 feet above sea level and home to 100 or more residents who apparently refused to evacuate. There is no road/bridge, the ferry has stopped running, and the Coast Guard and EMS have pre-warned that no rescues are going to be possible.
- Horrendous rain and flooding. There is an unreal amount of water coming with this storm, and the rainfall is going to be exacerbated by the slow forward motion of the storm. Many places from Myrtle Beach to Wilmington will see one to three feet of rain. A few places could see 40 inches. The numbers on the map below are likely understated given that the models have never seen any storm follow a track like this. And given saturated soils and drainage problems from the surge, the flooding is going to be a massive problem.
- Widespread power outages. Even if winds top out at “only” 90-105 mph in the populated areas, there will be at least a few hundred thousand to a few million people who lose power. It may take days or even weeks to get it back.
- The analogy to this storm is not Andrew or Camille. It’s some combination of Harvey, Ike, and Sandy. Each of those storms killed scores of people and did tens of billions in damage. Everyone in the path should be taking this very seriously.
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