From Cat 6:
September 13, 2018, 10:51 AM EDT
Heavy rains from Category 2 Hurricane Florence are lashing the coast of North Carolina as the dangerous storm heads northwest towards an expected landfall on Friday. Florence may be a Category 2 hurricane by the Saffir-Simpson wind scale, but it is a Category 5 heavy rain and inland flooding threat. Florence will stall on Friday and move slowly west-southwest along the coast for several days, bringing a devastating rainfall and storm surge event.
Radar data from the Morehead City, NC radar showed that Florence’s outer spiral bands began dumping heavy rains over the Outer Banks and much of Eastern North Carolina on Thursday morning. Rainfall amounts of 0.5 – 1.0 inch per hour were common, with a few heavy cells generating higher rainfall rates. A Personal Weather Station in Emerald Isle, NC picked up 2.9” of rain in just 40 minutes at 10 am EDT.
At 10:58 am EDT, winds at Beaufort, NC were sustained at 31 mph, gusting to 52 mph.
At 11 am EDT, winds at buoy 41063 20 miles south of Ocracoke Inlet, NC were sustained at 45 mph, gusting to 60 mph.
Intensity forecast for Florence: little change before landfall
Florence’s environment is still conducive for intensification, but the storm is not well-structured to do so, and the hurricane is quickly running out of time for any intensification to occur. The SHIPS model predicts shear will remain a moderate 10 – 15 knots through Saturday, SSTs will be a warm 29°C (84°F) during this period, and ocean heat content will be lower than before, near 20 kilojoules per square centimeter. Given Florence’s lack of a complete eyewall, significant intensification is unlikely, and we can expect the hurricane to gradually weaken as land interaction increases and the slower motion of the storm upwells cold water from the depths. Our top three intensity models predict Florence will be a borderline Category 1/Category 2 hurricane with 95 - 105 mph winds at landfall.
| Figure 3. The 0Z Thursday, September 13, 2018 track forecasts by the operational European model for Florence (red line, adjusted by CFAN using a proprietary technique that accounts for storm movement since the time of the model run), along with the track of the average of the 50 members of the European model ensemble (heavy black line), and the track forecasts from the “high probability cluster” (grey lines)—the four European model ensemble members that have performed best with Florence thus far. These forecasts were very unified on Florence approaching the coast of North Carolina, then moving southwest along the coast and inland over South Carolina. Image credit: CFAN. |
Earlier today:Track forecast: a stall near the North Carolina coast, then west-southwest to west motion
The latest 0Z Thursday runs of our top five track forecasting models were similar to their previous 12Z runs, agreeing that Florence would head towards the North Carolina coast through Thursday evening, as the clockwise flow around the Bermuda High pushes the storm northwest. But on Thursday night, Florence will put on the brakes and screech to a halt as the steering currents collapse. Given that the steering currents will be very weak Friday and beyond, slight changes in the balance between these forces guiding the hurricane will make a huge difference in where the hurricane makes landfall. This makes the exact landfall location a time difficult to predict accurately. Landfall will be between 2 am and 10 am EDT Friday, according to the five models....MUCH MORE
Hurricane Florence: Energy
