AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter warns of catastrophic flooding and widespread damage from Hurricane Helene when the storm makes landfall tonight and continues inland this weekend.
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00:00Now it's the day. This is the landfall day and when you look behind you, John, what are you seeing when it comes to the features of Haleen right now?
00:07Well, it's a great point. What we see is an intensifying hurricane and one that is poised to do significant damage and risk lives from a storm surge perspective,
00:16damaging wind well inland and truly a catastrophic flash flooding situation that we're going to be dealing with.
00:22You can see sustained winds up to 105 miles per hour.
00:25Latest information from the hurricane hunters. We were just analyzing with our team of hurricane experts, all indicating this storm continues to strengthen as we've been forecasting.
00:34You use that word catastrophic. We don't use that lightly here at AccuWeather. You know, not a buzzword here.
00:40It is the highest on our risk to lives and property. And what may surprise people is how far north that catastrophic area is.
00:50Well, we're going to be dealing with very serious and life threatening impacts right near the landfall point.
00:56And, of course, throughout much of the southeastern United States from various risks of the storm.
01:01But we're highlighting now AccuWeather's team of over 100 expert meteorologists, a catastrophic risk that just shows you the urgency and how concerned we are about how dangerous this flooding situation can get.
01:14Across portions of the southern Appalachians, where rain may fall at two to four inches per hour.
01:20It's too fast, too furious in the steep terrain. We're talking about roads and bridges that may be washed out.
01:26And in fact, communities which may not be which may be isolated for days as a result of those kinds of problems.
01:33So a very, very serious situation. All right. On that map, you also see a number there, John.
01:38It's the AccuWeather impact scale here, which is a four. And it's pretty much what you just broke down about the catastrophic damage lasting days to weeks.
01:46We talked about the rain, but what are some other impacts that we can expect?
01:50Well, the storm surge is a major issue right near the coast, of course, where we've been highlighting that here for days to come.
01:57A 15 to 20 foot storm surge in some parts of the Big Bend area of Florida.
02:02This could be even 23 feet or so in some localized spots as well.
02:07And of course, that storm surge risk is also going to go down to the Tampa Bay area where a six to 10 foot storm surge can occur.
02:14And across parts of the east coast of Florida and to South Carolina as well.
02:17The other thing we want to stress is the damaging winds.
02:20A lot of times storms are going to be losing wind intensity as they slowly move inland, especially across the southeast.
02:27Not so with this storm. It's getting flung inland as we make our way through late tonight and through Friday.
02:34The core of the storm will come right up from North Florida, right up I-75 toward Atlanta.
02:39And that's going to spread damaging winds of 60 to 80 miles per hour across much of southeast Georgia and across portions of South Carolina up into North Carolina as well.
02:49And a significant power outage risk. Widespread and long lasting power outages. Please prepare for that in those areas.
02:55All right. Let's wrap up quickly with the amount of rain.
02:58I mean, in a city like Asheville, we've already seen over eight inches of rain and there's more to come.
03:02There is. We're forecasting 12 to 18 inches of rain in those hardest hit areas.
03:06A true flooding disaster. And we do not use that those words lightly.
03:10It will occur in those areas.
03:12Acura Chief Meteorologist John Porter, we appreciate you joining us.