NorthHillsWx

Have been unable to sleep due to intense lightning and thunder overhead. Sitting at 2.52” and still raining a little. Shockingly it looks like another band may be building up to our west that could move through later

We’ve picked up more rain in the last hour and a half than we received through the entire month of June

Storm gusted out before it got here but we’re getting the goods in the rainfall department finally

I have to correct my total from Chantal. That was my weekly total including last weeks rain. We received just 0.52” from Chantal here. I was at the beach during the storm and didn’t know I was looking at weekly. Our monthly total is 1.11”

To my post above, one thing I believe may have happened here was the circulation was much more mature and deeper than forecasters had expected. A storm that had been forecast to degenerate into a trough in the Carolina’s largely kept its surface circulation intact into the mid Atlantic. This led to a much stronger southerly and easterly flow which enhanced moisture transport and efficiency longer than expected so the “core” was able to sustain itself longer than expected. I think when you see weak storms hit land a lot of times they kind of vanish inland and just their moisture is left but when they become more vertically stacked and mature it takes them longer to wind down and you can see a core of heavy rain sustain itself longer. That’s my 0.02 as to why Chantal was so much worse than forecast this weekend

This was a huge forecasting miss in the rainfall department. The watches hoisted explicitly stated 1-3” with isolated totals to 5”. We ended up seeing widespread 4-7” totals with isolated amounts to nearly 1 foot! At least the areas were correctly identified from a watch standpoint but there is a huge difference between a watch for 1-3” of rain and isolated flash flooding and what happened including historic river flooding. This needs to be reexamined as to why forecasts were so grossly off for rainfall totals. Tropical systems are generally “easy” to forecast in this department as the are organized and have many runs of computer models analyzing ongoing convection so you don’t usually misses of this caliber with an organized tropical system

We finished with 1.11” from Chantal

Obviously hurricanes Florence and Michael had catastrophic flood events for parts of central NC but that was mostly east of the areas impacted by Chantal. I think these areas you’d have to go back to 1996 Hurricane Fran to find anything close to this. You keep seeing the record crests from that storm mentioned in NWS flood forecasts as it was the benchmark for these areas in terms of river flooding which makes this all the more impressive

With the events in Texas this flood event is definitely being overshadowed but this is a devastating flood for parts of NC with several rivers nearing and even exceeding all time record crests

Some places west of Raleigh have seen nearly 1 foot of rain! Forecast was for amounts of 1-4” with isolated totals of 6”. Per RadarScope I’m seeing widespread 5+” totals with several areas more than double that.

About the same here in Raleigh but I’ll take it over the nearly 1 foot near chapel hill. Also the biggest rainfall event here in more than 3 weeks so we’ll definitely take it

In Morehead city we just had a nasty squall move through with likely some 40 mph gusts. Wind is generally 20-25. Looks like ocean isle to Myrtle beach got a decent little blow from this storm overnight

Several buoys just east of Charleston are now measuring gusts around 40 kts on the west side of the circulation. With strongest winds on east side it may be a little stronger than 35 kts already

The system looks much more organized this morning with the COC more easily found on first visible images this morning. Overnight convection mainly east of the center has continued and there are some new bursts just east of it as I speak. With shear decreasing and an improved look this morning I would expect steady strengthening until landfall. Probably a 50-55kt ceiling. NHC notes the possibility of center reformation under the bursting convection and the storm has consistently been moving east of track so I wouldn’t be surprised if areas further north than current watch area, maybe up to cape lookout, end up seeing some of the worst weather from this lopsided storm

Satellite imagery is a bit deceiving as the MLC is well east of surface circulation and surface center is diffuse. Will be interesting what NHC goes with at 5, but it’s not far off from a name. IMO this very likely gets named and areas east of landfall have a nasty weekend