{"id":32874,"date":"2024-09-30T21:38:00","date_gmt":"2024-10-01T02:38:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=32874"},"modified":"2024-10-01T06:44:52","modified_gmt":"2024-10-01T11:44:52","slug":"the-science-behind-how-a-florida-hurricane-ravaged-north-carolina","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=32874","title":{"rendered":"The science behind how a Florida hurricane ravaged North Carolina"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Asheville and its surrounding towns in western North Carolina had just been soaked by a severe rainstorm when the remnants of Hurricane Helene<\/a> slammed into the Blue Ridge Mountains.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

What unfolded, starting Wednesday evening and lasting through the weekend, is a well-studied atmospheric phenomenon. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAs weather moves in toward the mountains, the clouds have to rise up and over the mountains, and that\u2019s the upslope effect,\u201d said Doug Outlaw, a National Weather Service meteorologist in the agency\u2019s office in Greenville-Spartanburg, South Carolina. \u201cIt tends to squeeze out more rainfall, and unfortunately, it caused extreme flash flooding, which devastated communities. It was a huge amount of water at one time being channeled and funneled through the valleys.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The devastation in North Carolina\u2019s inland mountain towns \u2014 thousands of feet in elevation and hundreds of miles from any coastline \u2014 may seem unexpected for an area once thought of as a safe haven from the effects of climate change, but it\u2019s the type of far-reaching impact that will become increasingly likely, experts say.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Helene inundated parts of southern Appalachia with well over 2 feet of rain. Floodwaters carried away entire houses and washed out highways, cutting off access to towns. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThat\u2019s about a half-year\u2019s worth of rain coming in four days,\u201d Outlaw said. \u201cIt\u2019s one of the worst weather events that\u2019s hit this area in history.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

At least 20 locations in western North Carolina, including Asheville, experienced levels of flooding expected only once every 1,000 years. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Climate change is intensifying storms because higher ocean temperatures act as fuel and a warmer atmosphere allows for heavier rain over land<\/a>. For every 1 degree Fahrenheit of warming, the atmosphere can hold about 4% more moisture, said Shel Winkley, a meteorologist at the nonprofit research group Climate Central.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

That significantly increases the chance of catastrophic flooding.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A report from Climate Central in May detailed the increasing risk of inland flooding<\/a> as a result of global warming. The places where remnants of Helene caused the most damage were among those the report identified as most at risk.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cAppalachia was named as one of the areas that had an outsized burden for future flooding,\u201d Winkley said. \u201cThis is an area that\u2019s known to have the potential for more flood events and more costly flood events, as well. Unfortunately, that\u2019s what we saw this past weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Of the more than 120 storm-related deaths<\/a> across six states recorded so far, at least 44 were in North Carolina. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Part of the problem is the region\u2019s mountainous terrain. But in this case, the area was dealt a double whammy: Heavy rain fell days before Hurricane Helene made landfall in Florida, then remnants of the storm brought more rain and wind to southern Appalachia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt was two compounding events that clashed,\u201d Winkley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Forecasters saw it coming with a high degree of accuracy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201c*URGENT MESSAGE* This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era,\u201d officials with the Greenville-Spartanburg office of the National Weather Service wrote in an update on X<\/a> on Thursday. \u201cRecord flooding is forecasted and has been compared to the floods of 1916 in the Asheville area.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In 1916, 25 people died when floodwaters swept away buildings, destroyed the local power plant, ruined the railroad and cut Asheville off from the rest of the country<\/a>, according to the Asheville Museum of History<\/a>. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The similarities are striking.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe forecast was really, really good,\u201d said Christopher Godfrey, chair of the department of atmospheric sciences at the University of North Carolina Asheville. \u201cThe National Weather Service did a fantastic job. They were appropriately firm in their choice of words.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given those warnings and his own expertise, he said, the horrific outcome was no surprise to him.   <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt\u2019s the topography around here. There\u2019s some really steep terrain. Houses are built on steep terrain. Roads go up steep terrain,\u201d Godfrey said. \u201cThis is such a catastrophic flood with all the rain we got. Even well-constructed bridges are going to be gone.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Scientists are exploring what role climate change played in Hurricane Helene and have shared some early results. One group found Helene was up to 20% wetter in parts of the Southeast as a result of global warming<\/a>. Another estimated that climate change caused some parts of Georgia and the Carolinas to get 50% more rain\u2002<\/a>and that the rainfall totals were made up to 20 times more likely because of climate change. The estimates are preliminary, but both rely on respected scientists using methods that have been peer-reviewed previously.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godfrey recorded 13.37 inches of rain at his house in Arden, North Carolina, over three days. More than 21 inches fell over the same period in nearby Hendersonville, according to the National Weather Service. That\u2019s simply too much for the mountainous landscape \u2014 the flood damage in Godfrey’s area corresponds roughly to what Federal Emergency Management Agency maps suggest would happen in a flood expected once every 500 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The severity caught one of his neighbors off-guard, Godfrey said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThe neighbor across the street said: \u2018I heard that, but I didn\u2019t do anything. I didn\u2019t think it would be that bad.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Godfrey said a few consequences of the storm have been surprising, including the level of damage to trees, which have snarled roads and made first responders\u2019 jobs extra challenging. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI don\u2019t think anyone expected the extent of the tree fall,\u201d said Godfrey, who researches wind storms and tree falls.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He thinks most trees toppled because the soil was so saturated. During the height of the storm, Godfrey said, he heard a pattern ringing throughout the neighborhood as one tree fell after another. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cYou could hear snap, snap, snap, snap and then hear the crash when it lands,\u201d Godfrey said. \u201cWhat we heard was the roots snapping.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Two walnut trees, taller than 100 feet, fell a few dozen feet from Godfrey\u2019s home. Another tree crunched a neighbor\u2019s car.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Communication systems have also fared worse than Godfrey expected. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cWe have no idea what\u2019s going on out there,\u201d Godfrey said in a phone interview during a visit to a weather station he manages at UNC Asheville. \u201cThe only reason you got me is I\u2019m on top of a hill looking over Asheville at the moment. Down in the valley, there\u2019s no internet, no Wi-Fi,  no cellular and even no texting.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Asheville had been dubbed a climate haven<\/a> in some news coverage, given that it\u2019s removed from coastal threats like sea level rise and its relatively high elevation keeps temperatures down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

But almost nowhere on Earth is insulated from natural hazards, and few places have taken steps to sufficiently prepare for extreme weather that is becoming more common. Seattle was once viewed as a potential climate haven, until a 2021 heat wave<\/a> sent temperatures to 108 degrees Fahrenheit in a place where most people didn\u2019t have air conditioning. And parts of the Midwest that were seen as climate havens have seen extreme rain, too.<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cClimate change hits different communities in different ways, and so while mountainous areas may have been a haven from extreme temperatures, as we found out, they\u2019re not necessarily a haven from the potential for devastating flooding,\u201d Winkley said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It\u2019s a reminder, he said, of the far-ranging consequences of a warming world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cA hurricane is normally thought of as a coastal problem, but now we\u2019re finding that these events \u2014 these big-ticket, climate-driven events \u2014 can make weather more intense farther away from the typical impact spots that you would think,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Nbcnews<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Asheville and its surrounding towns in western North Carolina had just been soaked by a severe rainstorm when the remnants of Hurricane Helene slammed into the Blue Ridge Mountains. What unfolded, starting Wednesday evening and lasting through the weekend, is a well-studied atmospheric phenomenon.  \u201cAs weather moves in toward the mountains, the clouds have to rise up […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":32875,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5780],"tags":[1223,26111,30636,22039,1164],"class_list":["post-32874","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-livehood","tag-climate","tag-flash-floods","tag-heavy-rains","tag-hurricanes","tag-weather"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32874","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=32874"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32874\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32876,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32874\/revisions\/32876"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/32875"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=32874"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=32874"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=32874"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}