Hurricane Helene, a powerful Category 4 hurricane that made landfall in Florida’s Big Bend region, has since weakened to tropical depression status. Unfortunately, its impact is still being felt. The death count is 40 people in four states.
Hurricane Helene left an enormous path of destruction across Florida and the entire southeastern U.S. on Friday, killing at least 40 people in four states, snapping trees like twigs, tearing apart homes and sending rescue crews on desperate missions to save people from floodwaters.Georgia Gov. Brian Kemp said dozens of people were still trapped in buildings damaged by the Category 4 hurricane. The storm had maximum sustained winds of 140 mph (225 kph) when it made landfall late Thursday in a sparsely populated region in Florida’s rural Big Bend area, home to fishing villages and vacation hideaways where Florida’s Panhandle and peninsula meet.The damage extended hundreds of miles to the north, with flooding as far away as northeast Tennessee, where a “dangerous rescue situation” was unfolding after 54 people were moved to the roof of the Unicoi County Hospital while rapid waters flooded the facility, according to Ballad Health.In North Carolina, a lake used in the movie “Dirty Dancing” overtopped a dam. People in surrounding neighborhoods were evacuated, although there were no immediate concerns it was about to fail.
Some climate scientists projected this might be a relatively quiet hurricane season due to the development of an Atlantic Ocean version of La Niña. What appears to have happened is that the storm’s development and movement were influenced by a combination of factors, including a high-pressure system to the northeast and a trough or low-pressure system to the northwest, creating a sort of “conveyor belt” steering Helene.
This effect is similar to what occurred with Hurricane Sandy in 2012.
Helene is “going to do a dance,” but not with another hurricane or tropical storm, said Gus Alaka, director of the Hurricane Research Division at NOAA’s Atlantic Oceanographic & Meteorological Lab.Instead, Helene is responding to the effects of a low-pressure weather system to its northwest.That interaction is occurring in the upper levels of the atmosphere, where commercial jets fly, and not at surface level. That means it’s not technically undergoing the Fujiwhara Effect.The combination of that weather event to the northwest, and a high pressure system to the northeast, are creating a fast-moving “conveyor belt” for Helene, steering it and ultimately forcing it to a standstill over Tennessee, northern Georgia and lower Appalachia, Alaka said.The interaction between a tropical storm and an atmospheric weather system is more common than the Fujiwhara Effect. Weather systems are common, regularly moving through the country and providing weather changes, Alaka said.
Unfortunately, some of the deaths appear to be related to people ignoring evacuation orders. And the damage reports from Florida are already daunting.
All five who died in one Florida county were in neighborhoods where residents had been told to evacuate, said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff in Pinellas County in the St. Petersburg area. He said people who stayed because they didn’t believe the warnings wound up hiding in their attics to escape the rising water….Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis said the damage from Helene appeared to be greater than the combined damage of Idalia and Hurricane Debby in August. “It’s demoralizing,” he said.
Social media reports indicate widespread effects and recovery efforts will be lengthy.
But there is uplifting news of successful rescues.
And one weatherman took the storm personally (satire).
Prayers of support continue for all our friends in the Southeastern US.
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