Forecasters concerned about widespread, catastrophic damage from Hurricane Helene

AccuWeather

AccuWeather forecasters break down what they're expecting from Hurricane Helene's imminent landfall.

Transcript

00:00I want to bring in our AccuWeather hurricane expert, meteorologist Dan DePodwin, and Dan,

00:05we want to give the latest here of the conditions that we're looking at here with Hurricane

00:11Helene.

00:12Yeah, Bernie, the concern obviously continues to increase as Helene begins its approach

00:18to the Florida Big Bend, a Category 4 hurricane, as we've been talking about for the last couple

00:22of days, that we were the first to predict that, and we've held that forecast consistently,

00:25also with an AccuWeather real impact of four.

00:28That's the second from the top level of a five on that scale, and that indicates widespread

00:33significant and in some places catastrophic damage from this storm, landfall coming up

00:38fairly soon in the next few hours, and here are some of the impacts from a real impact

00:42of a four as we've been talking about.

00:43Some of these concerns can last for days to weeks, especially the flooding.

00:48Yeah, and you can see the widespread damage and the wind, the power outages, that's why

00:54the decision was made yesterday in advance, it's important to notice this, in advance

01:00of Hurricane Helene becoming a four, we moved that real impact scale because of the impacts

01:07that we would see well inland.

01:10Here's the latest, Dan, your impression of the satellite.

01:13It is continuing to maintain, at least maintain if not continue to slowly strengthen a bit

01:18in the last hour or two, maximum sustained winds at 130 miles per hour.

01:22We could see it slightly increase before landfall, but regardless, a strengthening storm coming

01:26into this region is a dangerous setup for widespread impacts.

01:29Look at the size of the storm.

01:31That's been the other part of this storm, just the sheer size.

01:35We've had impacts well away from the center of circulation.

01:39You know, the strongest storm so far this season, Barrel, when it moved across the southern

01:44Windward Islands, then made landfall in the upper Texas coast as a Category 1 hurricane,

01:50and certainly you could see the difference in size between the two storms, Dan.

01:54Yeah, you can.

01:55The tropical storm force winds extend most of the width of Florida.

01:59The hurricane force winds extend 80 to 90 miles in either direction, so it's really

02:03a major size difference here, almost three times the width of tropical storm force winds

02:09as compared to Barrel from earlier this year.

02:11The decision was made, Dan, just a short time ago, and again, when we look at the IPATH

02:16Category 4 in Apalachee Bay, but we made the decision to fine-tune the AccuWeather

02:23Exclusive Landfall Forecast.

02:25Yeah, we see some wobbles left and right, east and west as the storm approaches, but

02:29this is the area we're really focusing on here over the next three to four hours in

02:33the middle of the Big Bend of Florida, just probably just east of St. Mark's, near the

02:36mouth of the Osceola River here is where we're most concerned for landfall, but really everywhere

02:40in this region and well inland is at risk for significant widespread impacts.

02:46And take a look at, again, we're continuing the forecast that we are looking for hurricane

02:50conditions in the Tallahassee area.

02:53There's the wind gusts of 100 to 120 miles per hour, and we've been really, really concerned

03:00about how far inland the damaging winds will extend.

03:05Winds are always a concern of the coast with hurricanes.

03:07This storm, because of its forward speed, 30 miles an hour potentially here as it heads

03:10through the southeast, will bring those winds much farther inland than most storms, and

03:14that's why we expect significant widespread power outages that can last for days, if not

03:18a week in some areas.

03:19It extends through most of Georgia into the western Carolinas, even eastern Tennessee.

03:24So significant, and there's already 300,000 people without power in Florida.

03:28We expect that number to just grow and balloon overnight here across the southeast.

03:32All right, hurricane, AccuWeather hurricane expert Dan Dupondrit, thanks for the update.

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