Marion_NC_WX Posted September 9, 2014 Share Posted September 9, 2014 To all my southeast weather friends...In the last few months I have recently joined a group of Meteorologists and weather hobbyists called the Carolina Weather Group. We have a Facebook page we keep updated all the time. We also do a weekly webcast on Youtube...the group is based here in the Western Piedmont and Foothills of North Carolina but our reach extends to all parts of both North and South Carolina and we occasionally have guests from other parts of the Southeast US. The panel including myself has been working hard over the past few weeks getting things organized as we are going to air a special on the 25th Anniversary of Hurricane Hugo next Wednesday Night (Sept 17th) starting at 8 pm Eastern Time. To the folks of the South Carolina Coast and cities inland like Charlotte North Carolina, Hugo is the benchmark storm that everyone talks about to this day... I would personally like to invite everyone here on the southeast forums to check out our show on the 17th...for those who are familar with the Google Hangout webcasts on Youtube...you can submit questions to our Q and A forum and we will answer those during the show.This specific webcast has been a big project that I have put a significant amount of time in over the past month or so...Hugo will always be the storm that I will remember because it was the first time in my generation that a powerful hurricane affected my area which is over 200 miles inland from the coastline...If you are around the computer next Wednesday, please drop by and watch. The video will also be available online immediately after the live stream finishes. At this time we have received a commitment from the following television Meteorologists to be our guests for this special event... Rob Fowler (Chief Met: WCBD-TV, Charleston SC)Eric Thomas (Chief Met: WBTV, Charlotte NC)Both Rob and Eric were working in their respective markets 25 years ago and they should provide plenty of good insight into how their areas were affected by Hugo...The following links below including some info on the show itself via the CWG Facebook page along with the actual Youtube link that you can click on to watch the night of the show... https://www.facebook.com/events/909177829099225/ Also for the purpose of this forum, I figured with it less than 2 weeks away from the actual anniversary, right now is a good time to re-hash some old memories about Hugo... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WxBlue Posted September 9, 2014 Share Posted September 9, 2014 Glad to see this opened up I'm actually working on a blog post about it since it was a huge influence in my life and the reason why I'm seeking a career in meteorology. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calculus1 Posted September 9, 2014 Share Posted September 9, 2014 Great stuff, Marion! Thanks for sharing. Hugo was an amazing storm. The eye passed over my house in Lenoir, NC. I remember the strong winds as it approached, the eerie quiet inside the eye, and then the winds as they resumed after the eye passed. Crazy to experience that so far inland... Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Cold Rain Posted September 9, 2014 Share Posted September 9, 2014 Sounds awesome, Marion. Hugo was a big disappointment for me. I was in Burlington, and it was supposed to track closer to us. It ended up staying south and west, giving us some rain and gusty conditions...nothing too interesting. But be that as it may, it was a very impressive storm. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mackerel_sky Posted September 9, 2014 Share Posted September 9, 2014 Very damaging storm in my neighborhood at the time (Gastonia) . Heavy damage all around! I was in middle school and just got a tv in my room and was glued to it all night! Probably strongest winds I will ever experience ! No power for 7 days and no school for about 2weeks! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JoshM Posted September 9, 2014 Share Posted September 9, 2014 Very damaging storm in my neighborhood at the time (Gastonia) . Heavy damage all around! I was in middle school and just got a tv in my room and was glued to it all night! Probably strongest winds I will ever experience ! No power for 7 days and no school for about 2weeks! I wish we could have had a website like this or some BBS form back in those days... would have been fun during the storm. Course the phone lines went belly up too. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
superjames1992 Posted September 9, 2014 Share Posted September 9, 2014 I wish we could have had a website like this or some BBS form back in those days... would have been fun during the storm. Course the phone lines went belly up too. If you look around on Google Groups, you can find some old BBS stuff from the 1980s (and I've even found some stuff from 1979). I've not looked for weather discussion groups, though. That would be interesting.' Example: 1981 newsgroup discussion, followed by me doing some 30-years-after trolling at the end: https://groups.google.com/forum/?fromgroups=#!topic/net.general/ogWV7uijzJc Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion_NC_WX Posted September 15, 2014 Author Share Posted September 15, 2014 At this time 25 years ago...Hurricane Hugo had just become a major hurricane (115 mph winds, 962mb pressure) per the 8 pm advisory on September 14th, 1989... Later the next day Hugo went a rapid intensification phase and briefly became a Cat 5 Hurricane in the open Atlantic before eventually impacting the islands including Puerto Rico... Folks 25 years later probably forgot that Hugo had a short stint as a Cat 5...We are 3 days away from the special that my colleagues and I at the Carolina Weather Group are going to do remembering the 25th Anniversary of Hugo...again, I personally invite all my southeast peeps to watch...here's some archived data I found online showing each and every advisory that was written during Hugo's lifespan... http://www.wunderground.com/hurricane/atlantic/1989/Major-Hurricane-Hugo? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchighcountrywx Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 Marion, thanks for putting this together. Certainly classic canes like this are a rare event. Direct perpendicular category 4 hurricanes that cross the Carolinas coast at right angles towards the NW at a forward speed of 25mph are to be highly respected and prepared for. The combination of the Southwestward advancing upper low ahead of Hugo and the Atlantic High Pressure to the NE, created a channel that drove Hugo into the coast moving NW at 25mph. I have many photographs that I took the 2 days after Hugo in the McClellansville, Bulls Bay and Francis Marion National Forest area 30 miles NE of Charleston. I will do my best to locate them this week and have a few scanned. Hugo put a 5'+ Storm Surge over US 17 over 5 miles inland from the Coast (See Google Map Area below) Shrimp Boats in the median of US 17 where shrimpers had run their boats up in the tidal creeks and Hugo had carried them inland depositing them on US 17 Francis Marion National Forest was literally neutered in that area the night of Hugo. Estimates 30 miles NE of Charleston in the right front quad eye wall is that damage observed in the forest areas indicated gusts to 185 likely occurred. http://www.publicaffairs.noaa.gov/hugo89.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WxBlue Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 I got few pictures from Moncks Corner after the storm as well from my aunt. I'll try to have them posted on here. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
calculus1 Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 Here's a pic showing the track of Hugo's center of NC. You can see all the federal disaster areas in WNC. As I've said before, I distinctly remember when the eye passed over Caldwell County, NC. Date: September 21, 1989, midnight Landfall Location: Sullivan's Island, South Carolina (hit North Carolina just west of Charlotte). Category: 1 (at landfall in N.C.), 5 (Highest) Wind Speed: 85 miles per hour (North Carolina), 160 miles per hour (Highest) Major Areas Affected: South Carolina; 29 counties in North Carolina (Brunswick County, Outer Banks, western part of North Carolina). Major Damage Types: Structural, environmental, agricultural (timber 2.7 million acres damaged at $250 million) Total Dollar Damage: $ 1 billion (North Carolina) Deaths: 7 (North Carolina) Injuries: Dozens Structural Damage: Many homes completely destroyed or severely damaged. Special Details: Although this storm made landfall in South Caroline, it did cause significant damage to parts of North Carolina. Severe storm surge with highest tide Near Bull's Bay, South Carolina (20 feet). Highest storm tide ever for the east coast of U.S. Severe beach erosion. Many inland counties affected (some 100 miles from the coast), large percentage without electricity, high winds, and extensive rainfall. Dissipated the protective dunes of the Barrier Islands (Long Beach, Holden Beach). At the time it hit, Hugo was the most expensive hurricane in U.S. history. http://geodata.lib.ncsu.edu/fedgov/noaa/commvuln/htm/hugo.htm Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion_NC_WX Posted September 15, 2014 Author Share Posted September 15, 2014 Here's a pic showing the track of Hugo's center of NC. You can see all the federal disaster areas in WNC. As I've said before, I distinctly remember when the eye passed over Caldwell County, NC. http://geodata.lib.ncsu.edu/fedgov/noaa/commvuln/htm/hugo.htm What is amazing about that track is where I live (less then 30 miles west)...we had gusts in the 50 mph range at the worst but most of Burke County and for sure Catawba and Caldwell were around hurricane force... BTW, just in relation to the coastal locations...we're talking hurricane conditions 250 miles inland. According to this document I found last night...Hugo was approaching 30 mph forward speed when it came ashore... www.nws.noaa.gov/om/assessments/pdfs/hugo1.pdf Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchighcountrywx Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 This table shows just has precarious it was on the Carolinas Coast the afternoon prior to Hugo's Landfall: For a time early afternoon to 8:00pm that evening, there was a critical high concern Hugo was going to shift more NNW earlier than expected and move inland over Myrtle Beach which would have put all of SE North Carolina in the devastating right front quad of a strengthening Category 4 advancing for a right angle cross to the coast line at a forward speed of at least 25 mph. Do the math....just a small degree of trajectory change could have really put a devastating blow from Myrtle Beach to Wilmington and Raleigh would have gotten what Charlotte received from the storm, only it would have been much much worse in Raleigh being closer to the coast. Very very very few people 150 to 200 miles inland had any earthly idea they were about to be walloped by a major hurricane that night. 'Hurricanes are just for the coast so they said'. Without question, Hugo was one of the Big Ones for the Carolinas in the lifetimes for people living in 1989, and thankfully maybe not to be repeated in a lifetime. TABLE 2-1 HURRICANE HUGO PROBABILITIES THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 21 Noon 3 PM 6PM 8PM Savannah, GA 37 10 7 25 Charleston, SC 48 56 69 99 Myrtle Beach, SC 35 63 69 62 Wilmington, NC 17 48 53 6 Morehead City, NC 5 20 24 X Cape Hatteras, NC 1 5 6 X Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
WxBlue Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 Here are pictures of my aunt's home in Moncks Corner, SC after Hugo: And here are ones few months later on December of 1989: Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchighcountrywx Posted September 15, 2014 Share Posted September 15, 2014 And the major Coastal Snow exactly 3 months after Hugo on December 23. I remember it very well. Only in the Carolinas can you have a major landfalling Hurricane on September 21 and 90 days later on December 22 have a 20+ snowstorm in the same area. Incredible. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion_NC_WX Posted September 17, 2014 Author Share Posted September 17, 2014 Was too busy with other matters to post this bit of info...but we picked up another guest for tonight's program. Current Orlando TV Meteorologist and former WPDE (Florence-Myrtle Beach) lead Meteorologist Tom Sorrells will be joining us, he will be able to give a first-hand account as to how bad it was on the Grand Strand and Pee Dee 25 years ago... For those on here who plan on watching, it starts at 8 pm and the replay will be made available immediately after the live airing ends. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lj0109 Posted September 17, 2014 Share Posted September 17, 2014 Looking forward to tuning in! I was very young at the time but remember bits and pieces from that long night that Hugo hit. We live in Calhoun County, about 35 miles SE of Columbia, and sustained heavy crop and moderate to heavy timber damage especially on the younger pines. We also actually had a small tornado come within about 400 yards of our home which destroyed several horse barns around our farm. I will try and get some photos next time I am at home to post. Here also is a link to a nice page that the Charleston Office has put together for the 25th Anniversary of Hugo: http://www.weather.gov/chs/HurricaneHugo-Sep1989 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchighcountrywx Posted September 18, 2014 Share Posted September 18, 2014 Daniel: Thank you to all you guys for putting this together. I enjoyed the broadcast this evening. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion_NC_WX Posted September 18, 2014 Author Share Posted September 18, 2014 Daniel: Thank you to all you guys for putting this together. I enjoyed the broadcast this evening. You're welcome... Hugo will always be a memory that will last in my lifetime...a lot of people were impacted and unfortunately some didn't survive the storm. I hope that tonight's webcast will serve to be very informative especially for the younger generation of people in this part of the world who has yet to witness something the likes of Hugo...and for those who did ride out the storm, tonight was a good platform to share some of those memories... Also the group as a whole were extremely fortunate to have people the likes of Eric Thomas, Tom Sorrells and Rob Fowler take time from their work schedule and join us! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
LongIslandHurricanes Posted September 21, 2014 Share Posted September 21, 2014 http://www.hurricanes-blizzards-noreasters.com/HURRICANEHUGO.html Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion_NC_WX Posted September 21, 2014 Author Share Posted September 21, 2014 It was at this point 25 years ago that Hugo jumped from a Cat 2 to a Cat 4 Hurricane and Charleston was basically staring down the barrel of a loaded gun...just a matter of hours away. All the TV markets in the Carolinas have been running their Hugo 25th Anniversary specials this weekend, I happen to come across WCSC's look back and to feel the emotion of the late Charlie Hall as he was reading off the latest info...that's heartbreaking and it reminds me a lot of how the television reaction was to Katrina when it was obvious that New Orleans was in danger... http://www.live5news.com/story/26561177/hugo25-live-5-news-looks-back-at-hurricane-hugo Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
lj0109 Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Around this hour 25 years ago, 2 MUSC students who were sheltering in our family's beach house on the Isle of Palms opened the front door of our house only to be swept into the storm surge. Here is a link to their story: http://iloveiop.com/isle-of-palms-sc/hurricane-hugo-stories/night-of-wind-and-water-3/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
nchighcountrywx Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Charlotte Observer Article has over 300 pictures Hugo 25 years later: Rare Charlotte hurricane made history http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2014/09/21/5189735/hugo-25-years-later-rare-charlotte.html?sp=/99/597/530/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Solak Posted September 22, 2014 Share Posted September 22, 2014 Here's a story I submitted to our local paper 3 weeks after Hugo... rereading again brings a lot of emotion back to the surface. I'm the Tom Mann mentioned. http://darecountynews.advantage-preservation.com/document/coastland-times-1989-10-31-page-19 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Marion_NC_WX Posted September 22, 2014 Author Share Posted September 22, 2014 This moment 25 years ago...Hugo was a 60 mph tropical storm located just to the northwest of Hickory North Carolina...the folks of South Carolina were waking up to the reality, folks in Charlotte were stunned as to the enormous damage caused by a hurricane 175 miles inland... Damaging winds were making its way through the North Carolina Mountains and Foothills and about to enter into Western VA. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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