National Weather Service director Ken Graham flew with the hurricane hunters over Hurricane Helene. He shares what he saw flying over the powerful storm, which will hit Florida on the night of Sept. 26.
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00:00What have you seen so far, and what, particularly about Helene, is standing out?
00:05Yeah, the whole flight. I mean, it's an interesting situation.
00:09It's the first time I've been able to be on one of the Hurricane Hunter flights.
00:1230 years in this agency, and I was never able to do it because I was working on the ground.
00:16We saw just an incredible, powerful storm.
00:19I mean, just to be able to experience that from the air.
00:22There was one point entering the fourth penetration into the eye.
00:26Actually, the storm actually pushes up 1,500 feet almost in an instant.
00:31So it's a powerful storm, absolutely powerful storm.
00:33So we just, like just listening to what you were saying,
00:36we just got to encourage everyone to really take it serious,
00:38not just on the coast, but well inland as well.
00:41All right, Ken, you were talking about just how powerful Helene is right now
00:44whenever you took that flight and that pass.
00:46So it does look like Helene is going to continue to strengthen and intensify.
00:51So with that in mind, give our viewers,
00:53give the folks that are in the direct path of this storm,
00:56just your advice as a meteorologist,
00:58as someone who has literally seen this thing up close and personal,
01:01of what they should do as this storm approaches.
01:04Yeah, the biggest thing is take it serious.
01:06You know, Tallahassee, you think about the panhandle,
01:09you think about the storm surge areas.
01:11I mean, anytime we forecast 15 to 20 feet,
01:14it's just absolutely catastrophic type of storm surge, the rainfall.
01:17And, you know, and I've been doing this so long,
01:19you know, I can almost write some of the script for this.
01:22You'll have the impacts right along the coast.
01:24You have the flooding and the storm surge,
01:26but so many times we have more direct fatalities inland.
01:31So places all through Georgia with the winds and the rain,
01:34up into the Carolinas,
01:36the places that we've highlighted with that heavy rain in the mountains of
01:40Western North Carolina, East Tennessee,
01:43please take that serious because that rainfall often will lose more people to
01:47the inland rain than we actually do on the coast.
01:49So my biggest advice is please pay attention to what we're saying,
01:53what you all are saying at AccuWeather, what everybody's saying,
01:56please pay attention and take this one serious.
01:59All right, Ken, thank you so much for that advice.
02:01We're going to continue to do our best to help keep people safe and informed
02:04here as Helene continues to make that northward trek.
02:07That was Ken Graham, Director of the National Weather Service.
02:09Thank you so much for joining us.