Why flash flooding overwhelmed southern North Carolina on Sept. 16

AccuWeather

The tropical rainstorm that came ashore on Sept. 16 wasn't a named storm, but it caused historic flooding in a narrow area of North Carolina. AccuWeather's Tony Laubach explains why.

Transcript

00:00Tony Laubach, who is joining us from down the road in Charleston, South Carolina.

00:04Tony, you've spoken about yesterday's event as one of the biggest flash flood events you've ever

00:09seen among your decades of storm chasing. So talk to us about what put this so high on your list.

00:19Well, Jeff, it's interesting because, you know, you talk to J. Jack, Aaron J. Jack and myself,

00:25you know, we both probably have decades upon decades of experience chasing storms. And when

00:29two of us come out and say this is one of the biggest, craziest rain tropical events we've ever

00:35seen, you know, we're we're barking up the right tree there. And this was a sentiment even shared

00:39by residents, even those that went through Hurricane Florence six years ago, saying that

00:43they just they were mind blown by what it is that they were seeing. And I'm going to talk to you

00:47about why while I show you the science, the radar that happened while we were dealing with this,

00:53this all came in really with the most of this brought in from the late say mid morning hours

00:59all the way up until about the early afternoon hours. Well, we had this one persistent band

01:03that spiraled up into the area and then it just trained heavy cell after heavy cell and being in

01:10the midst of one of those cells where it was raining. I'm not kidding, folks, for maybe five

01:15inches per hour. That is some crazy rains. Think about that for you snow lovers out there. If you

01:21have a ten to one snow ratio, your average snow ratio that in that hour period of time, if it was

01:27snowing that hard, if you equivalated that to snow, you would be talking about 40 to 50 inches

01:32of snow happening in that short amount of time. That's just mind blowing stuff. Show you some of

01:36the video here, because, again, you've seen these scenes. It was just something else. We talked to

01:40residents who, again, share that same type of sentiment when they were out about yesterday

01:45checking out what was left behind by this rain. We were talking about residents who have been

01:49there for 10, 15, 20 years and said they've never seen anything quite this dramatic. And not only

01:54what you're seeing, you got to remember how quickly this all happened. This is why we call

01:59it a flash flood. It happens in a flash. And this is basically how this all went down. This was not

02:05coastal surge. This was not from a tidal surge. This was all from just the amount of rain that

02:10fell and that rain had nowhere to go. When you start piling on, as we mentioned several times,

02:1518 inches of rain in that short amount of time. It has nowhere to go except for up. And that's

02:20basically what happened through a good chunk of town. You're seeing one area. Most of town

02:26looked like this. It was almost impossible to get around. Conditions continuing to today,

02:30where we're still dealing with the lingering effects of where that water's all draining,

02:34the creeks and the streams and the tributaries. So they're still dealing with that. And then,

02:38of course, the cleanup and the restoration, that all is going to be next in line for folks.

02:42But many of these folks, again, just absolutely baffled. If you were with us early yesterday

02:46morning, I was talking to you about people who weren't even aware there was a storm coming. And

02:50while we were just sounding the alarm here, the AgriWeather Network saying, don't go to sleep on

02:55this. While it was not the widespread effects, it was that narrow band. And I'll tell you what,

03:00man, when you talk about the impacts to those folks there in Carolina Beach, South Port,

03:06that all in that area, you basically take an entire hurricane. It felt like you just shoved

03:10it right in that line. Incredible stuff, Tony. We appreciate all that you've done to document this

03:15and share the stories of those who have been affected by it over the past couple of days.

03:19Tony Laubach in Charleston, South Carolina. A busy couple of weeks there for Tony amid hurricane

03:24season.

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