Since posting a few days ago, several key things have evolved per Hurricane Florence. It has lost power, down from a Cat 4 to a Cat 2, but at the same time the storm is about 500 miles wide, so big that the International Space Station had to go to a wide-angle lens to photograph it all. The hurricane force winds extend 80 miles from the center, so effectively a 160-mile swath of sustained winds >74mph.
Too, Flo is slowing in forward speed, which will extend and exacerbate the wind damage and severe flooding likely to occur as it nears the Carolina coastline throughout today and Friday. The actual location of landfall in a slow mover becomes a tad of a moot point, but it still looks to be just north of Cape Fear, toward Topsail Island.
Where it begins to directly affect us in ACA is mostly Sunday and Monday at this point. Up til then there will be the daily scattered showers and storms, then breezy conditions will start picking up as we get into the weekend and the remnants move closer to us. Flo could still be a tropical storm in power as it crosses through the northern Upstate of South Carolina, near Florence (nice irony, huh?) and then a tropical depression by Columbia early early Sunday morning. From there, it lazily curls back up to the NC mountains by midnight as we head into Monday, all the while making for gray, wet, and breezy conditions for us.
Amounts? I have not been overly impressed with the national QPF maps in keeping up with the changing track and speed and rainfall from Flo, but 3-6 inches is a good guesstimate for us (at least at this time). It will be breezy, of course, but the only concerns for damage will be trees being knocked down and localized flash flooding from really heavy bands. I think back to May and the areas that had tragic landslides and such here in the Blue Ridge, musing if the heavy rains might dislodge more events from weakened slopes.
As always, I'll update as I see necessary, probably sometime Saturday.
Bob
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