Lead AccuWeather Forecaster Reveals Which Areas Should Expect The Worst Flooding From Hurricane Erin

On "Forbes Newsroom," AccuWeather's Lead Hurricane Forecaster Alex DaSilva discussed flooding along the eastern shore.

Transcript

00:00I was going to ask about flooding because, of course, North Carolina experienced severe

00:04flooding during the 2024 hurricane season. How far inland do you expect that flooding to go?

00:11Well, the good news is we're not going to be seeing a lot of rainfall from this storm overall.

00:16There is going to be some rain ahead of the storm in portions of New York State, Connecticut,

00:20Massachusetts, but it's not really related to Erin. It's more related to the cold front that's

00:24coming to the east, stalling out and bringing some heavy rain to those areas. The good news is

00:28the storm is going to remain well enough offshore that the rain bands are just going to clip the

00:33outer banks of North Carolina. So we might see an inch or two of rain along the extreme outer banks

00:37of North Carolina, but we really don't expect to see much flooding from rainfall. Most of the flooding

00:43will be near the beaches from those big waves and from the onshore push that's going to cause those

00:49dangerous storm surges to come inland. Now, are there any areas of the east coast that are under

00:54evacuation orders or is everyone just being advised to watch carefully?

01:00I mean, due to the storm surge forecast and the big waves forecast, the outer banks of North Carolina

01:05has been evacuated. Those evacuation orders went up a couple of days ago. They were mandatory

01:09evacuations because they expect the road that runs along the outer banks to be compromised. It's

01:15already being compromised in certain areas. Saw some videos of that road already being washed over

01:20and we're still 24 hours before the storm even makes it up there. So that's the reason those

01:24evacuation orders were issued because they're expecting that there's going to be several days

01:28that you might not be able to get in or out of Cape Hatteras here because of the roads being

01:34compromised. So that's the area that is is most of concern right now for flooding. But we also even

01:39have, you know, of course, there could still be some flooding even farther north than that. But the core

01:44of the damaging waves, the damaging flooding is going to be right along that North Carolina coastline.

01:50North Carolina coastline in store for some damaging flooding, but further north where I am