Lead Forecaster Daniel Crawley
Good Wednesday morning, we continue to closely monitor Hurricane Ian as it makes approach on the Florida Coastline and eventually the Carolinas…
Some important things took place yesterday that has impacted the forecast track across Florida and then eventually as it goes northward into Georgia and the Carolinas. We will get into those details in just a minute…
Here’s the latest advisory on Ian from the National Hurricane Center…unfortunately for the residents of Florida this storm has rapidly intensified overnight to a near category five status.
Once Ian began to move steadily northeast away from Western Cuba, we started to see all the computer model guidance come into line. We are looking at a faster landfall across Florida and less of a chance for Ian to stall over The Sunshine State.
You can see here with the ensembles that we are now dealing at a moderate to high forecast track. It appears now that Ian might briefly splash into the Atlantic Ocean on Thursday before turning back into the Southeast Coastline. We will continue to monitor throughout the day on Wednesday for any additional changes…
Western North Carolina Impacts…
Now that the forecast track is coming in-line, we are starting to really focus on the local impacts from Ian. First off, today is going to be one of the final nice days we will have for a while. Clouds will increase on Thursday and by Friday we will start seeing the impacts in terms of rain. Get out and do some of those chores necessary to make sure drainage areas can allow water to flow freely. Foliage here in the early days of autumn are collecting around the house, in guttering and ditches…
Rainfall will be the main threat with this storm, a surge of deep tropical moisture will move in late Friday and will persist for most of the weekend. Hopefully slowing down by later Saturday.
Here’s a first call for precipitation amounts for our coverage area from Friday through early Sunday… locations away from the Blue Ridge Mountains should receive a 2-4 inch rainfall over a 36-48 hour period. OF course, a differing track could alter the amounts. As you get west of US 321, you’ll see where amounts go up. Our western counties look to be in line for 3-6 inches. And of course, the upslope regions right along the Blue Ridge Escarpment could really pile up the rainfall over two days. Some flash flooding and river flooding may start to occur in some of the orange and red shaded locations by Saturday.
Wind impacts is something we will have to monitor as well. Not nearly as much as rainfall but we could get some sneaky wind gusts bring down a few trees, especially once the ground becomes saturated.
The pressure gradient is going to give us stiff northeast breezes beginning on Thursday and peaking late Friday. Wind gusts of 30 mph are expected by Friday afternoon/Friday Night.
One potential caveat is now that guidance wants to briefly place Ian back over water, it may allow the storm to retain its wind energy a bit longer than earlier anticipated…
In terms of overall impacts from Ian, here ‘s a look at where we see them in terms of severity at this time…this is definitely subject to change…
Summary…
Here’s a look back at the key points from this morning’s update…Stay Tuned as we will keep you updated on the expected impact from Hurricane Ian.
