Major Hurricane Helene

[jm1220]

19 minutes ago, MANDA said:

Speaking strictly about wind and power outages.  Track (and size) matters.  Max winds and max areal coverage of power outages are along and east of the track.  As it usually does landfall location and inland track are important.  The people in eastern third of GA and upstate SC can confirm that.  I'm thinking many in those areas were taken by surprise by the amount of wind damage and such huge areal power outages.  For most a short distance west of the track this was not a big deal.  Along and east huge deal.  PRE was also super important to flooding.  Helene moved quickly.  Had there not been such a notable PRE flooding from Helene would have been far less.

Just my 2 cents.

The interaction with that upper low made it a lot worse by drawing moisture north in the upslope direction for the hard hit areas in the Carolinas, well before Helene made landfall. That’s what caused the PRE that primed everything. It also probably helped ventilate Helene and assisted strengthening. As it moved N more quickly the shear became a non issue. 

[Chinook]

when you have 938 stamped on a surface map

[downeastnc]

Makes you wonder how many times this happened and the people did not get out of the way etc....fear the deaths are gonna creep up for day as they get into areas totally cut off right now.

 

 

[bdgwx]

AccuWeather is estimating the damage and economic losses at between 95 and 115 billion dollars.

https://www.silive.com/weather/2024/09/hurricane-helene-accuweather-finds-storm-is-among-costliest-in-us-history.html

[tiger_deF]

The story of this hurricane is going to be the horrifying inland flooding. Entire towns in TN and NC wiped off the map, houses destroyed and the landscape reshaped. Probably dozens of people if not more dead that are unaccounted for. The most impactful hurricane since Ian.

[wthrmn654]

I think that's the section of the interstate that's closed from flooding wow

[WxWatcher007]

10 hours ago, WishingForWarmWeather said:

You’re the best, friend. Thank you. 

Yes! I watched all your videos you posted. They were impressive. I was wondering - I saw chatter across the social media world in numerous places of people being “unimpressed” with the wind. Which, we both know, happens every single storm.

I know Laura is your benchmark and I remember how rattled you were after. How did this stack up, in your opinion? I know being any closer to the coast itself was impossible due to the location, what’s available for protection, and surge concerns. But do you believe, if it were possible to be closer to “ground zero” than Perry, that the wind and gusts would have been perceived as more impactful?

I can’t remember just how far Perry is - but I do know it’s a little bit of distance and many trees in between. Do you think the trees had any effect on the “disparity” (in quotes bc I fully understand we’re never going to get sustained winds matching official numbers) or simply just the distance? 

Thanks for the question. Here are some of my thoughts about the chase (long post alert):

I think the wind delivered. It’s extremely hard to visually estimate wind speeds (which is why doing a damage report after the storm is so important) but the Perry airport reported a wind gust of 99 and they only report 3x an hour and didn’t have a peak wind from what I could see. 

I like studying wind. Perry is about 10-15 miles inland so there’s going to be significant wind reduction due to surface friction, and I think the general public and even chaser/wx enthusiast wind expectations can be out of whack.

If any storm is making landfall, I lop off a significant percentage of what I expect in sustained and peak wind gusts. But it doesn’t diminish the storm. At all. That’s just the reality of surface wind reduction.

The eyewall of Laura was head and shoulders above what I saw in the eyewall of Helene, but Helene was better than what I saw in Idalia just last year—to be expected since they were different categories.

Laura made landfall at 150mph. LCH had sustained winds of 105 and gusts to 132 before going offline. Winds were certainly higher than those reports in both categories but still weaker than the objective advisory analysis. 

 

 

The damage was incredible, but many well built structures survived. 

 

 

Idalia was off its peak, but still produced substantial wind and lightning. There was also some structural damage. 

Here with Helene, it looked and felt worse, even at night, but looking objectively after the fact I wonder if we missed the worst winds just southeast between Perry and Salem. Too rural to do anything other than risk yourself in a highly rural location. I should’ve attempted to head there after to survey. 

 

Still, we were getting hit hard in Perry. That’s impressive wind even with a 20% reduction.

 

I’m certain I would’ve seen it in Laura if I went to a more populated area, but this is the first time I saw some store fronts blown out. 

 

Here’s my last video documenting the worst. 

Finally—two things

1) It’s truly extraordinary to see the extent of the catastrophe. Record surge in Florida, potentially generational inland wind damage all the way into the Carolinas, and of course, the historic flooding in GA, the Carolinas, and TN. This will be the storm of record for a lot of people, and it continues to rewrite the rules on the ceiling of CAG systems. 

2) Something I said last night elsewhere—

This was the first time I really saw chaser convergence for a TC. There were some that understood that there are people whose lives would be dramatically different after the storm and others that did not care. There are always some that do things that make first responders jobs more difficult. 

I sat with an elderly couple in the lobby of the hotel as the eyewall was approaching. Folks from Perry. Terrified. Guys were talking about 150+ mph winds at 4000 ft or whatever and backslapping and making it feel like a party while the wife was barely holding back tears. I took the time to explain to them why some of us do what we do and the science of surface wind reduction. Took the time to explain that the hotel was very well built and that they didn’t need to spend the night in the staircase. Showed a little empathy and reassurance that their home wasn’t going to get ripped apart like an EF-5 in Oklahoma. 

I would consider myself a pro now. This is what I do. My first rule has always been to respect the people in the places you go. Now I’m not perfect and I can’t be. I say that and my hotel room is one less a person evacuating could get. I defied a mandatory evacuation order though Perry is outside FL’s evacuation zones and I do not drive during the worst as a rule.

Unlike when I started, these days I travel because I think I’ve gotten good enough to add on the ground value and my chases have reflected that imo. 

I’m not one to do the whole moralistic thing, but I firmly believe that chasers should never be the story. Show up and do your thing, but show respect to the people that don’t get to fly in and fly out. I cut out a number of clips and won’t post them because of the celebratory vibe they gave off. That’s just not cool to me in a catastrophic event. 

[HNYB]

13 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

I took the time to explain to them why some of us do what we do and the science of surface wind reduction. Took the time to explain that the hotel was very well built and that they didn’t need to spend the night in the staircase. Showed a little empathy and reassurance that their home wasn’t going to get ripped apart like an EF-5 in Oklahoma.

As someone who lives on the Gulf coast (not by choice--military), thank you for your professionalism and compassion. This isn't a game.

[dan11295]

I suspect a lot of the reason for the chaser convergence was limited safe locations to chase near the landfall point. Perry is the closest decent size town. Really nothing right on the coast and would have been extremely dangerous with the surge anyways.

[gymengineer]

This drone footage from Keaton Beach is reminiscent of the drone footage from Grand Isle after Ida. 

 

[dan11295]

 

[MANDA]

1 hour ago, gymengineer said:

This drone footage from Keaton Beach is reminiscent of the drone footage from Grand Isle after Ida. 

 

Looks like Cat. 4 damage along the coast for sure.  Amazing though how most homes were wiped out to the slab (even with remains of the pilings still intact) and a few were left standing.

[clskinsfan]

Asheville, NC is completely cut off by land. Only air resources are capable of reaching a city of roughly 100000 people. All of the bridges and roads into the city are destroyed. This is a catastrophe of epic proportions. 

[RU848789]

15 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

The chase went about as well as it could. Ended up in the center of the eye. I posted a few videos in the thread. 
 

For the posts you have to paste the original link in another tab or window and substitute X for Twitter.

So for example:

If you paste the original link it’ll look like this

https://x.com/burgwx/status/1839785589241258454?s=46&t=Nn9Cx92_8118fPdhHPdJHw
 

If you change it in another tab and paste, it should automatically convert. You’ll know you’ve done it right if the tweet posts before you hit submit. 

 

Thought I tried that before and it didn't work; have the same issue on FB, but not two message boards I post to.  Trying it below and as I'm pasting the two URL versions, I see exactly what you said about the tweet being visible in the draft post.  

Edit: it worked!  Thanks so much - I had googled how to do this and didn't really get a lot of help.  However, that approach doesn't work on Facebook, still - any idea how to embed tweets in FB?  Thanks.  

https://x.com/burgwx/status/1839785589241258454?s=46&t=Nn9Cx92_8118fPdhHPdJHw

 

[WxWatcher007]

12 minutes ago, RU848789 said:

Thought I tried that before and it didn't work; have the same issue on FB, but not two message boards I post to.  Trying it below and as I'm pasting the two URL versions, I see exactly what you said about the tweet being visible in the draft post.  

Edit: it worked!  Thanks so much - I had googled how to do this and didn't really get a lot of help.  However, that approach doesn't work on Facebook, still - any idea how to embed tweets in FB?  Thanks.  

https://x.com/burgwx/status/1839785589241258454?s=46&t=Nn9Cx92_8118fPdhHPdJHw

 

Glad I could help. Unfortunately idk how to do it for FB.

[RU848789]

2 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

 

2) Something I said last night elsewhere—

This was the first time I really saw chaser convergence for a TC. There were some that understood that there are people whose lives would be dramatically different after the storm and others that did not care. There are always some that do things that make first responders jobs more difficult. 

I sat with an elderly couple in the lobby of the hotel as the eyewall was approaching. Folks from Perry. Terrified. Guys were talking about 150+ mph winds at 4000 ft or whatever and backslapping and making it feel like a party while the wife was barely holding back tears. I took the time to explain to them why some of us do what we do and the science of surface wind reduction. Took the time to explain that the hotel was very well built and that they didn’t need to spend the night in the staircase. Showed a little empathy and reassurance that their home wasn’t going to get ripped apart like an EF-5 in Oklahoma. 

I would consider myself a pro now. This is what I do. My first rule has always been to respect the people in the places you go. Now I’m not perfect and I can’t be. I say that and my hotel room is one less a person evacuating could get. I defied a mandatory evacuation order though Perry is outside FL’s evacuation zones and I do not drive during the worst as a rule.

Unlike when I started, these days I travel because I think I’ve gotten good enough to add on the ground value and my chases have reflected that imo. 

I’m not one to do the whole moralistic thing, but I firmly believe that chasers should never be the story. Show up and do your thing, but show respect to the people that don’t get to fly in and fly out. I cut out a number of clips and won’t post them because of the celebratory vibe they gave off. That’s just not cool to me in a catastrophic event. 

Thanks for sharing your insights and observations/videos/pics - fantastic stuff.  And thanks, also, for showing decency and humanity when interacting with people whose lives and livelihoods are at risk and sometimes totally destroyed and not treating them like a photo op.  Sad that not all chasers take that approach.  

[RU848789]

11 minutes ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Glad I could help. Unfortunately idk how to do it for FB.

Looks like it's not possible anymore (it used to be).  As one poster in that thread said, it looks like MarkyMark and MuskyMusk are still at each other's throats and we all are collateral damage, lol.  

 

[BlueSkyGA]

My first time experiencing an eyewall. The winds were battering us for a few hours and then complete calm, then the winds hit us from the other side. The forecasted track was quite a bit off. 

[NCsandhills]

May have been posted already and not sure how to embed

https://x.com/aladdinumar/status/1840157916063543483?s=19

 

 

[SethToast]

1 hour ago, clskinsfan said:

Asheville, NC is completely cut off by land. Only air resources are capable of reaching a city of roughly 100000 people. All of the bridges and roads into the city are destroyed. This is a catastrophe of epic proportions. 

You can still physically get into the city from the south via I-26, although technically entirety of Western Northern Carolina roads are closed for "non-emergency" purposes. Asheville roads only look closed on google maps because google maps gets it's traffic data from cell phones, which aren't working right now because all of the towers are inoperational.

 

https://apnews.com/article/hurricane-helene-asheville-flooding-north-carolina-tennessee-078a298cdcaaf46749f3f6683a4e1057

[clskinsfan]

Yeah. You are right 26 is still open I guess. 

[Windspeed]

We just got our power back on, and I'm trying to catch up. Just dumbfounded at the devastation across the mountainous areas of Western NC and East TN. We lost some trees in our neighborhood that took out our power. Interestingly, the mid-level 700 hPa vortex remnant eye actually made it all the way across the mountains into upper NE Tennessee and crossed Holston River watershed. The winds were gusting 50-60 mph, and there had to be downsloping off the adjacent mountain ranges into the hill country of Sevier, Greene, Unicoi, Washington, Carter, Sullivan and Johnson. But to my amazement, it was after the vortex passed over, we had very strong southerly-to-southwestward wind gusts that just obliterated trees everywhere. Some of those gusts had to top 70 mph. It's by far the worst wind for the Tricities region since the Blizzard of '93, and I am certain it surpassed that superstorm. Nothing else comes close. It has me wondering if it was due to extratropical transition with the 800-500 mb vortex and some kind of baroclinic sting jet flow into the south side of it. There was virtually no precip except for a frontal like line of showers on the east side when that occurred. Obviously, trees were already weakened substantially from the strong ESE flow versus soil saturation as Helene was crossing over the mountains. But again, the blast from the SW was crazy and was the straw that broke the camel's back.

At the end of the day, I consider my neck of the woods very fortunate. One night without power and internet? Boohoo! Many have it so much worse. Parts of the region either flooded, had washed away communities, experienced mudflows, or a much worse state of downed trees and powerlines. It will be weeks to months before infrastructure is restored, and perhaps some of these communities forever changed. The flooded counties in East Tennessee and Western Carolinas have experienced catastrophic damage. Not trying to ignore SC, GA, and Florida either. This will be a 100 billion plus disaster. My heart goes out to all those affected by this historic hurricane.

[WxWatcher007]

22 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

41 minutes ago, Windspeed said:

We just got our power back on, and I'm trying to catch up. Just dumbfounded at the devastation across the mountainous areas of Western NC and East TN. We lost some trees in our neighborhood that took out our power. Interestingly, the mid-level 700 hPa vortex remnant eye actually made it all the way across the mountains into upper NE Tennessee and crossed Holston River watershed. The winds were gusting 50-60 mph, and there had to be downsloping off the adjacent mountain ranges into the hill country of Sevier, Greene, Unicoi, Washington, Carter, Sullivan and Johnson. But to my amazement, it was after the vortex passed over, we had very strong southerly-to-southwestward wind gusts that just obliterated trees everywhere. Some of those gusts had to top 70 mph. It's by far the worst wind for the Tricities region since the Blizzard of '93, and I am certain it surpassed that superstorm. Nothing else comes close. It has me wondering if it was due to extratropical transition with the 800-500 mb vortex and some kind of baroclinic sting jet flow into the south side of it. There was virtually no precip except for a frontal like line of showers on the east side when that occurred. Obviously, trees were already weakened substantially from the strong ESE flow versus soil saturation as Helene was crossing over the mountains. But again, the blast from the SW was crazy and was the straw that broke the camel's back.

At the end of the day, I consider my neck of the woods very fortunate. One night without power and internet? Boohoo! Many have it so much worse. Parts of the region either flooded, had washed away communities, experienced mudflows, or a much worse state of downed trees and powerlines. It will be weeks to months before infrastructure is restored, and perhaps some of these communities forever changed. The flooded counties in East Tennessee and Western Carolinas have experienced catastrophic damage. Not trying to ignore SC, GA, and Florida either. This will be a 100 billion plus disaster. My heart goes out to all those affected by this historic hurricane.

Glad you are ok. An exceptional system in a multitude of ways. 

[WishingForWarmWeather]

7 hours ago, WxWatcher007 said:

Thanks for the question. 

 

You’re incredibly welcome. Thank you for the thorough, in-depth, well thought out, knowledgeable, and empathetic response. I’ve learned a lot from you through the years and the trend continues today. 

I don’t want to go point by point in what you’ve said, but I do want to quickly thank you for bringing up that behavior, comforting that family, and for the way you approach chasing professionally. As someone who went through Katrina in New Orleans it truly means a lot. 

I also wanted to get your thoughts on something regarding the wind, especially knowing it’s one of your big fascinations. 

I wanted to ask your thoughts regarding the gusts through Helene’s landfalling life. Why with this particular storm the gusts seemed to really be the bigger story… for example, double the sustained, maybe even triple the sustained or a little higher in some places. Maybe I’m just not remembering well exactly how storms in years past went but it feels like usually the gusts are more in the sustained + 20%ish range. 

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts as to the sustained -vs- gusts, the seeming over performance of the gusts (or if that’s just in my mind), how far inland those huge gusts went (which is why they seem as though they’re overperforming to me I believe, as the sustained winds were tightly contained). 

It was a big storm, yes - but was it also the SW/NE jet that influenced all of this? Is this gust:sustained ratio disparity (that maybe I’m making up) something that happens more with later in the season storms rather than the earlier ones?

Thanks ahead of time for your thoughts - or for anyone else who would like to chime in! I’m definitely still learning and would love to hear what anyone wants  to say/teach me. 

[WxWatcher007]

31 minutes ago, WishingForWarmWeather said:

You’re incredibly welcome. Thank you for the thorough, in-depth, well thought out, knowledgeable, and empathetic response. I’ve learned a lot from you through the years and the trend continues today. 

I don’t want to go point by point in what you’ve said, but I do want to quickly thank you for bringing up that behavior, comforting that family, and for the way you approach chasing professionally. As someone who went through Katrina in New Orleans it truly means a lot. 

I also wanted to get your thoughts on something regarding the wind, especially knowing it’s one of your big fascinations. 

I wanted to ask your thoughts regarding the gusts through Helene’s landfalling life. Why with this particular storm the gusts seemed to really be the bigger story… for example, double the sustained, maybe even triple the sustained or a little higher in some places. Maybe I’m just not remembering well exactly how storms in years past went but it feels like usually the gusts are more in the sustained + 20%ish range. 

I’m interested in hearing your thoughts as to the sustained -vs- gusts, the seeming over performance of the gusts (or if that’s just in my mind), how far inland those huge gusts went (which is why they seem as though they’re overperforming to me I believe, as the sustained winds were tightly contained). 

It was a big storm, yes - but was it also the SW/NE jet that influenced all of this? Is this gust:sustained ratio disparity (that maybe I’m making up) something that happens more with later in the season storms rather than the earlier ones?

Thanks ahead of time for your thoughts - or for anyone else who would like to chime in! I’m definitely still learning and would love to hear what anyone wants  to say/teach me. 

Appreciate the kind words.

Would love some thoughts from others too but looking back at least at the Perry airport data it does seem like there were more gusts than high end sustained winds.

Part of that may be related to what recon was finding pre-landfall. There were a lot of tremendous flight level winds but not a lot of surface estimates that matched up—but note that the NHC is reviewing its SFMR process.

It’s possible that in the hours it took for Helene to close off its inner core and expand its hurricane force wind field Thursday that there just wasn’t enough time to effectively translate those very high winds aloft to the surface. Each hurricane has its own sound, but there wasn’t much of a howl in the eyewall. It was definitely more big gust dependent.

Funny enough, looking southeast there was tremendous lightning and a big roar just off the deck, but the southern eyewall was nonexistent when we got to the other side of the eye. 

 

As for the gusts further inland, they were definitely aided by two things and maybe aided by another. All created the perfect conditions for a generational inland wind event. 

1) This was a fast mover. It reminded me of NE systems that rocket north and bring wind far into the region. The 1938 Hurricane was a classic example. It didn’t decay quickly by crawling inland. 

2) The trough/jet assisted in maintaining Helene’s intensity without a doubt. See Windspeed’s earlier post about a possible sting jet. Even without that, the jet enhanced winds aloft as Helene was moving quickly but decaying—keeping high end gusts on the table.

3) This is somewhat educated speculation, but I think the big winds aloft at landfall allowed for the storm to keep producing big gusts inland. Kind of related to #1 but if Helene isn’t intensifying at landfall and producing big wind just off the deck there’s no way the gusts we saw could propagate as far inland as it did. 

[Normandy]

excellent posts by everyone.  I personally believe that the high winds inland were caused by the interaction with the upper level low.  Beryl had a similar setup and had similar effects, however beryl was a cat 1 while Helene was a cat 4.  Additionally Helene was just much more of a monstrous storm, but would love to hear more thoughts on why the winds traveled so well inland

[GaWx]

1 hour ago, Normandy said:

excellent posts by everyone.  I personally believe that the high winds inland were caused by the interaction with the upper level low.  Beryl had a similar setup and had similar effects, however beryl was a cat 1 while Helene was a cat 4.  Additionally Helene was just much more of a monstrous storm, but would love to hear more thoughts on why the winds traveled so well inland

Mainly because Helene was moving at near record speed for this area, 30 mph! That along with its big size, which slows down weakening, and that it was still strengthening almost until landfall near guaranteed it would be very strong far inland though I was sorry to see it happen.

 Still no power here (longest outage since Matthew of 2016) but can easily handle as it pales in comparison to what the folks in the FL Big Bend, in/near Alma (GA), Valdosta, Augusta, and especially the W Carolinas have gone/are going through. Prayers to all who have been badly affected.

 Hoping this is it for anything significant in the SE US this season. Enough is enough!

 

[GaWx]

When comparing to the pre-Helene low SLP records of all time for any month and from any kind of system (see below), it looks like new all-time record low SLPs have likely been established by Helene in/near the corridor from the FL Big Bend through the GA cities of Valdosta, Warner Robbins, Macon, Milledgeville, and Athens. Helen, GA, probably just missed its record. The prior records were Idalia of 2023 (1049 mb) in the FL Big Bend and mainly from the 3/13/1993 “Storm of the Century” for the listed GA cities.

Record low SLPs (pre-Helene)(map will change once Helene is incorporated):

 

Dates of record low SLPs (pre-Helene): (3/13/1993 in green) (map will change once Helene is incorporated):

[Jebman]

There are sure a lot of people crying for help. Helene cut off many a community from help.

You guys are perfectly free to wish for Category 5 hurricanes.

But me, I am DONE with this stuff. I'm 60. I am getting seriously challenged from obsessing over walking most of my life. Walking is fine, but to idolize this like I did for 50 years, there are consequences. Serious consequences. My mom yells at me for being too slow. I see now my Dad was right, all those years. I always learn, THE HARD WAY, every time, in everything.

My heart BREAKS with deep sorrow as so many people are cut off. Many will be, for MONTHS to come, well into 2025!!!!!!!!

There may even be ANOTHER storm. We are going to be lucky just to survive to early December. There are probably going to be so many severe hurricanes that the entire Gulf Coast will have to be evacuated. Buda, Texas can't take another bad windstorm, we'd lose everything.

 

[dan11295]

I-40 Damage in NC

Here is a short aerial video with just once example of the type of infrastructure damage that has occurred. That is a long section of highway that is going to have to be re-built before it is re-opened to full capacity.