The southeastern U.S. is just starting to pick up the pieces left by Hurricane Helene, but AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter warns more tropical troubles could threaten the region again.
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00:00You know, John, I talked with Aaron Rigsme earlier today, Ari and I, and he had told
00:06me that a number of the buildings that he's seen in Western North Carolina, and I assume
00:12this is the case in North Carolina, some of them were swept away and others are just completely
00:18destroyed by all the water damage, and that's going to cause some huge problems as far as
00:24insurance is concerned.
00:26Yes, this is going to be an extremely costly disaster, as we've been talking about, one
00:31of the most costly disasters in U.S. history, and you see it does not have good company
00:37here.
00:38Helene, AccuWeather's estimate of $145 to $160 billion in total damage and economic loss,
00:45compared to also, Ian was $180 to $210 billion, and you can see this is, the Helene damage
00:51is going to be much more than Florence, which was of course a very damaging storm of $50
00:55to $60 billion in North Carolina several years ago.
00:59Now, one of the biggest issues that homeowners are going to face, you mentioned all of that
01:03water damage, and Aaron was talking about this here as well, most homeowner's policies
01:09do not cover for water damage, and in fact, people need to secure insurance from a separate
01:15program, the National Flood Insurance Program, and I looked at some of the publicly available
01:19data, for example, in Buncombe County, where Asheville is at, there are 130,000 housing
01:25units in Buncombe County, but only 997 national flood insurance policies in effect, so that
01:34tells you that less than 1% of homeowners have that coverage in the Buncombe County
01:40area that was so hard hit, so that's going to be the story here, that there's going to
01:45be many people who do not have insurance cover for this water damage which was so catastrophic.
01:50Alright, John, you'll continue to keep us updated on that developing story.
01:55Now, we're already looking back down into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and
02:00you know our, you know, earlier and more accurate, those are two of the main words that we use
02:07here at AccuWeather, and we still are the only known source to have a high risk in this
02:14area, we issued that over the weekend.
02:16We did, and we're doing that so that you can be best prepared and stay safer, that's our
02:20passion here at AccuWeather, and we're highlighting that same general area, trouble brewing, this
02:26is the same area that Helene came out of as well.
02:28Now what makes this, and I use the term, and you and I have been, I've kept murky, this
02:32is a very murky setup, we know about the high risk, that we do know, there's going to be
02:38challenges of timing the development and the impact, but again, as we've said from
02:45the get-go, Florida, Florida, Florida, here's where we have the problem, John, it's just
02:51not one area we have to monitor.
02:53Yeah, that's why it's murky, it's a great description, it's not one particular area
02:57of concern, you can see there's an upper level area of low pressure here with some spin coming
03:01into the Caribbean Sea, there's lots of showers and thunderstorms off the west coast of Central
03:07America, and generally there's going to be lowered pressures in this area, and it's from
03:12here that we think one or perhaps maybe two areas of consolidated thunderstorms can develop.
03:18Well, a lot of other sources are just giving you more moderate risk, what we're trying
03:22to do is, we're trying to take it a step farther here.
03:25What are the scenarios, John, listen, there could be more than this, but I think these
03:29are the two primary scenarios, let's talk about them, let's begin with that, let's say
03:33the upper low, just south of Cuba, that's the main low, that's what we have to track.
03:40Right, we're going to be watching very closely to see which of these becomes the focus area
03:44for development, if we get a development faster here in the parts of the northwest Caribbean
03:49Sea, that would tend to draw a system up toward Florida, in the Sunday to Monday time period,
03:56it looks like a hurricane would be unlikely, but it could be a big rain producer, which
03:59is obviously still very dangerous.
04:01Now, then let's go to the second scenario, and this I think is the more dangerous scenario,
04:06that is, we have an area of low pressure in the eastern Pacific, some of that energy gets
04:11into the Bay of Campeche, the problem is, John, with this setup, you have a longer period
04:17of time moving over the exceptionally warm waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico.
04:22Yes, that would be a problem for a more, it could be a more intense storm, but that would
04:26be later next week, we'd spend more time in the Gulf of Mexico, and it looks like the
04:31wind shear would be to the north, so that would be a concerning setup for a greater
04:34impact storm.
04:36And John, the one thing that I keep getting asked, how are you so certain that it's Florida?
04:43Well, because we know the weather pattern, and if you know the weather pattern, it's
04:47like the hurricane or the storm is a cork, and if you know the stream flow, and you have
04:52the cork and the stream flow, you know where the cork's going to go.
04:55Yes, the stream flow looks like everything is pointing it toward Florida, there's going
04:59to be a lot of wind from west to east across the Gulf of Mexico, and that does two things,
05:03one, it draws anything that does develop toward Florida, and it also should keep most of the
05:09rain out of the areas hardest hit in the southern Appalachians the way it looks right now.
05:13Yes, and that's certainly good news for the southern Appalachians, but boy, this is going
05:17to be a very tricky setup.
05:19Florida, Florida, Florida, though, that's the main message as we move forward.
05:24AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.