00:00Good morning. We're here at the National Hurricane Center with the latest on this Tuesday morning on
00:03Hurricane Aaron, which continues to be situated out here to the east of the Bahamas this morning
00:08with tropical storm watches and warnings still in effect for portions of the Turks and Caicos
00:12Islands, southeastern Bahamas, and central Bahamas. Right now, Aaron has maximum sustained winds of
00:17around 105 miles per hour, continuing to grow in size as it is now moving off toward the northwest
00:22at 9 miles per hour. The forecast really hasn't changed much since yesterday. We're expecting a
00:27more north-northwestward and northward motion over the next 12 to 24 hours, and then the core of Aaron
00:33is going to pass offshore of the outer banks of North Carolina and western Bermuda as we go from
00:37Wednesday night into Thursday morning, and then accelerate out eastward into the North Atlantic
00:41as we move through the day on Thursday into Friday. But the big change this morning now is we've now
00:46issued a storm surge warning for the outer banks of North Carolina from Cape Lookout up through Cape
00:51Hatteras, all the rest of Dare County up to Duck. This means there's the danger of life-threatening
00:55inundation of two to four feet of inundation above ground level, especially in that warning
01:01area here. And that is, again, life-threatening inundation. We're particularly concerned about
01:06both the ocean side of the outer banks as well as the sound side. And this graphic from the National
01:11Weather Service office here in Moorhead City talks about some of the timing. We're expecting the highest
01:15water on the ocean side beginning today on Tuesday, continuing all the way through Thursday with
01:21the potential for destructive wave action on top of that storm surge that could result in severe
01:25beach and coastal damage, beach erosion, overwashing and washing out of roads to become
01:30unpassable, especially roads like North Carolina Highway 12. There's also the potential for sound side
01:35flooding on Thursday once the wind turns north as Aaron's center moves off to the northeast. If we broaden
01:42out a little bit, however, there's also a risk of some coastal inundation of one to three feet above
01:46ground level, both to the south across the rest of the North Carolina coast, either northern South Carolina
01:51and up into portions of the lower Chesapeake Bay area, including Hampton Roads and portions of the eastern
01:57shore of Virginia. We've also now issued a tropical storm warning from Beaufort Inlet all the way up to
02:03Duck, so portions of Carteret, Hyde, and Dare counties. This means there's a likelihood of tropical storm
02:09conditions somewhere within this region within the next 36 hours, likely beginning late Wednesday or into the
02:15overnight hours Wednesday into Thursday, and then also we've extended now a tropical storm watch north
02:19of Duck up to including Virginia Beach and portions of northeastern North Carolina for the possibility of
02:25tropical storm conditions there. Now if we zoom out a little bit, we've been talking about the rip current
02:29risk all week, and you can see on this map basically the entire east coast from south Florida up through
02:34the Carolinas, the mid-Atlantic states, up into even northern New England has at least a moderate or even high
02:39risk of rip currents both today and to tomorrow, and that large wave field as Aaron's wind field expands
02:45is going to affect almost the entire east coast of the United States with dangerous surf and rip current
02:50conditions, so please stay out of the water. Pay attention to those warning flags along the beaches.
02:54So I'll just wrap up here with the key messages. We're expecting life-threatening surf and rip currents
02:58across the beaches from much of the western Atlantic basin, from the Bahamas, much of the east coast of the United
03:04States, Bermuda, Atlantic, Canada over the next several days. Storm surge flooding and tropical storm
03:08conditions are expected along the North Carolina outer banks, with some of the storm surge beginning
03:14even as late as today with the tropical storm conditions and worsening a coastal inundation
03:18beginning Wednesday into Wednesday night and continuing into Thursday. Heavy rainfall from the
03:23outer bands of Aaron will continue to affect parts of the Bahamas and Turks and Caicos today,
03:27resulting in some flash and urban flooding, and interest along the rest of the U.S. and mid-Atlantic
03:31coasts. Southern New England should monitor the progress of Aaron, as there are some potential for strong
03:36winds, especially offshore in the marine waters and also for Bermuda. So thanks for joining us here.
03:41You can come back to the National Hurricane Center at hurricanes.gov throughout the week for the rest
03:45for any updates on Aaron. I'm Mike Brennan at the National Hurricane Center.
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