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With forecasters imbuing her winds and waves with the fury of God’s own thunder, Hurricane Helene marched northward on Wednesday through the Gulf of Mexico toward a potentially cataclysmic rendezvous with Florida’s gulf coast.
Scarcely 48 hours after forming – and just 24 hours after becoming a named storm – Helene was already a hurricane packing maximum sustained winds of 85 miles per hour (with stronger gusts). Having just cleared the Yucatan Peninsula, she’s about to get a lot stronger (and bigger) as she moves over the warm, open waters of the gulf.
According to the National Hurricane Center (NHC) in Miami, as of 5:00 p.m. EDT Helene was located latitude 22.5° N, longitude 86.6° W, or approximately 460 miles southwest of Tampa, Florida. Headed north at 12 miles an hour, her hurricane-force winds extended outward for 25 miles from the center of circulation – while tropical storm-force winds extended outward for up to 345 miles.
That means tropical storm-force winds will start impacting Florida’s gulf coast as soon as 9:00 a.m. EDT tomorrow (September 26, 2024).
This is a big system, people… one that’s only getting bigger.
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“A northward or north-northeastward motion at a faster forward speed is expected during the next 36 hours,” forecasters noted in their latest advisory. “On the forecast track, Helene will move across the eastern Gulf of Mexico tonight and Thursday and cross the Florida Big Bend coast Thursday evening. After landfall, Helene is expected to turn northwestward and slow down over the Tennessee Valley on Friday and Saturday.”
Helene’s path over land is expected to cause major flooding in northern Georgia and the Appalachian region of North Carolina (and parts of South Carolina). In fact, the heaviest rainfall associated with the system is expected to fall in and around Asheville, N.C. – a place that isn’t typically targeted by tropical activity.
Helene is expected to produce total rain accumulations of 6 to 12 inches with isolated totals around 18 inches,” forecasters warned. “This rainfall will likely result in catastrophic and potentially life-threatening flash and urban flooding, along with significant river flooding. Landslides are possible in steep terrain across the southern Appalachians.”
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As previously noted, Helene is expected to undergo “rapid intensification” as it enters the gulf. Rapid intensification occurs when a storm’s maximum sustained winds increase by at least 35 miles per hour over a 24-hour period.
Actually, that’s already happened once with this system… the question is just how rapidly it intensifies as it moves north? The latest intensity estimates for Helene have her making landfall as a category four hurricane on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale – meaning its maximum sustained winds will be 131 miles per hour or higher.
“This is bad,” Florida-based weather expert Mike Boylan noted. “Real bad.”
Storm surge estimates accompanying the storm have also escalated dramatically over the past 24 hours. According to the latest projections, a 130-mile portion of Florida’s ‘Big Bend’ from Carrabelle to the Suwannee River is expected to see a storm surge of anywhere between 15-20 feet.
Take a look…
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Will these doom-and-gloom projections hold? Or, God forbid, will they worsen as Helene makes her approach?
Hopefully these are worst-case scenarios, but this is clearly a system that is not to be trifled with.
As previously noted, Helene is projected to be the first major hurricane to make landfall in the United States since Hurricane Idalia last August. Depending on its wind speed upon arrival, it could wind up being the strongest storm to hit the states since Hurricane Michael in 2018.
Keep it tuned to FITSNews and our new weather section as we track the tropics ahead of Helene’s impending arrival…
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR …
Will Folks is the owner and founding editor of FITSNews. Prior to founding his own news outlet, he served as press secretary to the governor of South Carolina, bass guitarist in an alternative rock band and bouncer at a Columbia, S.C. dive bar. He lives in the Midlands region of the state with his wife and eight children.
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