More tropical trouble could threaten Southeast again

AccuWeather

The southeastern U.S. is just starting to pick up the pieces left by Hurricane Helene, but AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jon Porter warns more tropical troubles could threaten the region again.

Transcript

00:00You know, John, I talked with Aaron Rigsme earlier today, Ari and I, and he had told

00:06me that a number of the buildings that he's seen in Western North Carolina, and I assume

00:12this is the case in North Carolina, some of them were swept away and others are just completely

00:18destroyed by all the water damage, and that's going to cause some huge problems as far as

00:24insurance is concerned.

00:26Yes, this is going to be an extremely costly disaster, as we've been talking about, one

00:31of the most costly disasters in U.S. history, and you see it does not have good company

00:37here.

00:38Helene, AccuWeather's estimate of $145 to $160 billion in total damage and economic loss,

00:45compared to also, Ian was $180 to $210 billion, and you can see this is, the Helene damage

00:51is going to be much more than Florence, which was of course a very damaging storm of $50

00:55to $60 billion in North Carolina several years ago.

00:59Now, one of the biggest issues that homeowners are going to face, you mentioned all of that

01:03water damage, and Aaron was talking about this here as well, most homeowner's policies

01:09do not cover for water damage, and in fact, people need to secure insurance from a separate

01:15program, the National Flood Insurance Program, and I looked at some of the publicly available

01:19data, for example, in Buncombe County, where Asheville is at, there are 130,000 housing

01:25units in Buncombe County, but only 997 national flood insurance policies in effect, so that

01:34tells you that less than 1% of homeowners have that coverage in the Buncombe County

01:40area that was so hard hit, so that's going to be the story here, that there's going to

01:45be many people who do not have insurance cover for this water damage which was so catastrophic.

01:50Alright, John, you'll continue to keep us updated on that developing story.

01:55Now, we're already looking back down into the Caribbean and the Gulf of Mexico, and

02:00you know our, you know, earlier and more accurate, those are two of the main words that we use

02:07here at AccuWeather, and we still are the only known source to have a high risk in this

02:14area, we issued that over the weekend.

02:16We did, and we're doing that so that you can be best prepared and stay safer, that's our

02:20passion here at AccuWeather, and we're highlighting that same general area, trouble brewing, this

02:26is the same area that Helene came out of as well.

02:28Now what makes this, and I use the term, and you and I have been, I've kept murky, this

02:32is a very murky setup, we know about the high risk, that we do know, there's going to be

02:38challenges of timing the development and the impact, but again, as we've said from

02:45the get-go, Florida, Florida, Florida, here's where we have the problem, John, it's just

02:51not one area we have to monitor.

02:53Yeah, that's why it's murky, it's a great description, it's not one particular area

02:57of concern, you can see there's an upper level area of low pressure here with some spin coming

03:01into the Caribbean Sea, there's lots of showers and thunderstorms off the west coast of Central

03:07America, and generally there's going to be lowered pressures in this area, and it's from

03:12here that we think one or perhaps maybe two areas of consolidated thunderstorms can develop.

03:18Well, a lot of other sources are just giving you more moderate risk, what we're trying

03:22to do is, we're trying to take it a step farther here.

03:25What are the scenarios, John, listen, there could be more than this, but I think these

03:29are the two primary scenarios, let's talk about them, let's begin with that, let's say

03:33the upper low, just south of Cuba, that's the main low, that's what we have to track.

03:40Right, we're going to be watching very closely to see which of these becomes the focus area

03:44for development, if we get a development faster here in the parts of the northwest Caribbean

03:49Sea, that would tend to draw a system up toward Florida, in the Sunday to Monday time period,

03:56it looks like a hurricane would be unlikely, but it could be a big rain producer, which

03:59is obviously still very dangerous.

04:01Now, then let's go to the second scenario, and this I think is the more dangerous scenario,

04:06that is, we have an area of low pressure in the eastern Pacific, some of that energy gets

04:11into the Bay of Campeche, the problem is, John, with this setup, you have a longer period

04:17of time moving over the exceptionally warm waters of the southern Gulf of Mexico.

04:22Yes, that would be a problem for a more, it could be a more intense storm, but that would

04:26be later next week, we'd spend more time in the Gulf of Mexico, and it looks like the

04:31wind shear would be to the north, so that would be a concerning setup for a greater

04:34impact storm.

04:36And John, the one thing that I keep getting asked, how are you so certain that it's Florida?

04:43Well, because we know the weather pattern, and if you know the weather pattern, it's

04:47like the hurricane or the storm is a cork, and if you know the stream flow, and you have

04:52the cork and the stream flow, you know where the cork's going to go.

04:55Yes, the stream flow looks like everything is pointing it toward Florida, there's going

04:59to be a lot of wind from west to east across the Gulf of Mexico, and that does two things,

05:03one, it draws anything that does develop toward Florida, and it also should keep most of the

05:09rain out of the areas hardest hit in the southern Appalachians the way it looks right now.

05:13Yes, and that's certainly good news for the southern Appalachians, but boy, this is going

05:17to be a very tricky setup.

05:19Florida, Florida, Florida, though, that's the main message as we move forward.

05:24AccuWeather Chief Meteorologist Jonathan Porter.

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