The latest Hurricane Florence spaghetti models map Wednesday revealed a potentially troubling story for the Southeast U.S, including Georgia, South Carolina, North Carolina and even Tennessee. In the models, the Florence storm track now dips south and west after landfall in the Carolinas—a rare move for a hurricane approaching so far north and west in the Atlantic.
This means Florence could hover over the Southeast states, pouring dangerous rainfall, causing flash flooding and river flooding—some areas are predicted to get from 15 to 30 inches, or more. Thus, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has issued a dire warning of "massive damage" in advance of the storm, expected to be one of the strongest to hit the region in decades.
"This will likely be the storm of a lifetime for portions of the Carolina coast," the National Weather Service in Wilmington, North Carolina, said in its forecast.
As of Wednesday morning, Florence had maximum winds of 130 miles per hour and some additional strengthening is possible today, the National Hurricane Center said. "Florence is expected to remain a dangerous major hurricane as it approaches the coastline." Florence was centered more than 500 miles southeast of Cape Fear, North Carolina, moving west-northwestward.
The latest Florence forecast track, sending the storm southwest into Georgia Sunday and early Monday as a tropical depression two days after landfall, is a late shift in the Hurricane Florence models forecast track, since days before they showed the storm following a more conventional path—making landfall in the Carolinas and then moving north, northwest into the states.
The culprit, according to the National Hurricane Center, is a developing pressure ridge that will slow down Florence near landfall and after landfall and push the storm as it downgrades into a tropical storm and then a tropical depression inland down through South Carolina and into Georgia Saturday, Sunday and early Monday.
"By late Thursday, a midlevel ridge is forecast to begin building over the east-central United States, which is expected to cause Florence to slow down significantly by 48 hours," the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday in its 5 a.m. update. "The track guidance is in good agreement through the first couple of days of the forecast period, and the National Hurricane Center track forecast again brings the center of the hurricane very close to the coasts of North and South Carolina within 48 hours."
This shift south and west puts areas, including Atlanta, at potential risk for heavy rains into early next week.
The National Hurricane Center said Florence's official track forecast could be adjusted farther south soon, reflecting increasing pressure from the ridge pushing the storm more toward South Carolina and Georgia.
"Later in the period, the dynamical model spread increases but most of the guidance has continued its southward shift, and now take Florence southwestward near the coast of South Carolina by day 4," the National Hurricane Center said Wednesday.
"The NHC track has been adjusted southward at days four and five, and is a little north of the consensus out of respect for continuity, however, the GFS, ECMWF and the ECMWF ensemble mean is south of the NHC track forecast, and additional southward adjustment may be warranted in future advisories."
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