NorthHillsWx

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My comment (in the banter thread) was ABSOLUTELY not made to mitigate the worst hurricane in my states history in ANY way. It produced hurricane force gusts to Charleston and Indiana. I’m working in the upstate right now and I am fully aware of the devastation here and elsewhere. I am simply saying, I haven’t seen video or pictures of any high end wind damage on the Florida coast. It’s all surge. I wonder if convection falling apart on NE side of eye as it made landfall lent to max winds not making it to surface at landfall. That’s it. That’s all I’m saying. Steinhatchee was in the band and took terrible surge but I still haven’t see much high end wind damage from even there. As the storm moved inland, those winds meant literally zero, zilch, nada for the winds that occurred inland as the hurricane for wind field was massive. If cat 4 winds only occurred in a 1/2 mile band in a marsh it makes zero impact of the massive size of the storm. It is strange to have SUCH a lopsided cat 4 with areas in the western eyewall not even getting hurricane force gusts and supposedly 140 mph wind on the SE side. Once again, I am not mitigating the storm, this was posted in banter, as it is unusual for a storm of this intensity and size to have so little non surge damage in the impact zones along the coast

Been working storm since Monday afternoon. Been mostly near Chesnee SC. Cell service has gotten markedly better since Monday. Power line damage is unlike anything I have worked inland. Reminds me of Fran in Raleigh. One circuit was over 50% laying on the ground. Progress is being made. Feel for folks up here, they have been nothing but welcoming and have frequently offered to bring food and water for me and our crews.

Josh said *in his opinion* the eyewall of cat 1 Krathon was more severe than the eyewall of cat 4 Helene

35.32”

It was quite the downpour but otherwise no lightning or wind

I’m dropping a car load of stuff off there right now in the Wal mart parking lot staging area they have set up

0.54” today and last night bring us to 14.06” for the month

I work for Duke Energy and just got deployed. We’re staging in Spartanburg but I will be headed to the NC mountains by this evening. I’m in a damage assessment role so I will be documenting damage to our infrastructure and sending line and tree crews where needed. I am loading my truck up with supplies right now and will drop them off at one of the donation spots set up. I am scared to think of the damage I am about to see

Definitely a weird storm to be so powerful on one side and really just a half-a-cane. Don’t see a lot of 120kt half storms but they do happen, and forward motion likely assisted this one. Only thing that kind of surprised me was the northern and northeastern eyewall being relatively tame on the ground. Both looked extremely strong on recon. I’m guessing max winds occurred between Keaton beach and Steinhatchee. In other sad news, looks like Helene will pass Hurricane Floyd’s death toll in NC

Sadly the death toll continues its rapid ascent. Nearly 100 confirmed dead. That will surely continue to grow as first responders reach some of the isolated and cut off mountain communities in NC

This is still a massive power outage event

Honestly it felt like Perry was the chaser convergence zone considering track and surge threat closer to the coast. I’m guessing that velocity maxima you highlighted was the peak wind impact zone but with a cat 4 and so many cameras running in what looked to be a ferocious northern eyewall you’d think that something high end would’ve been caught but to my knowledge it wasn’t. Absolutely not downplaying the storm

This is the only and last time I’ll mention this but from what I’ve seen I’m not sure the really high end hurricane winds occurred onshore. Surge was predictably bad but I’ve seen dozens and dozens of chaser videos from around Perry and they’re out driving around in it. You do not drive around in cat 3+ winds because… you can’t. I understand Perry wasn’t on the coast and wouldn’t have experienced the worst winds the storm had to offer, but most chasers have compared it to cat 2. Also I haven’t seen any visuals of cat 4 wind damage. Everything I’ve seen is surge. Maybe the SE eyewall that came ashore in the marsh had the real winds, just kinda surprised that northern eyewall wasn’t more potent. Obviously doesn’t matter. This is going to go down as one of the most damaging and destructive storms in history due to its inland impacts, just an observation I’ve made since I’ve had time to look at dozens of chaser videos. Maybe I’m way off and someone has some high end wind footage or damage pics, I just haven’t seen yet. Usually it’s easy to find after a storm like this with that many chasers

Season cap is off. Now everything wants to develop

Lots of conflicting reports but the death toll has risen to at least 43 and is expected to keep going up as rescuers reach some of the cut off mountain towns and sift through the debris. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2024/09/28/hurricane-helene-tropical-storm-updates-saturday/75417411007/

Definitely some potential brewing in the gulf. Not what anyone wants to hear but pretty solid signal for development at this point. Cannot even imagine another system on the heels of Helene’s devastation

2.17” from Helene brings our MTD total to 13.52”

Probably the worst storm to ever hit the western Carolina’s. Let that sink in. Flooding would’ve met the mark alone but the wind damage is insane

Hits home when people you connect with on here are seriously affected by a storm. Thinking bout yall western folks… Yall will get lots of powdery snow and no ice this winter

https://x.com/margoinwnc/status/1839717416227450950?s=46&t=NyKvXvI1o-sJQb-68mmo4g

2.17” storm total here. Last inch fell in 25 minutes

Any update on river levels? Anything break all time records yet

Lots of trees down and roads closed due to flooding and fallen trees. Outside the main campus and downtown businesses most everyone is lights out. Probably similar to Greenville

Duke energy surpassed 1 mil outages in Carolina’s