Columbus Day weekend coastal storm could be the most impactful storm of the 2025 hurricane season

AccuWeather

A coastal storm moving up the East Coast this weekend could lead to multiple feet of coastal flooding in the hard-hit area of the Outer Banks and extend all the way up into the Northeast.

Transcript

00:00All along the coast, we are talking about feet of coastal flooding.

00:03Absolutely. So to help us break down all these impacts, we're now joined by AccuWeather Vice President of Forecasting, Dan DePodwin.

00:10Dan, very high impact event here for the highly populated east coast of the U.S.

00:15What is on your mind when you look to the storm in general?

00:19Absolutely, Jeff. It could be one of the most, or to this point, the most impactful storm of the hurricane season

00:26for places outside of the Carolinas, which had some flooding earlier this season from Chantal.

00:30As you can see with our exclusive iPath, we're expecting this to form on Friday evening and then move up the coast,

00:36probably having some tropical characteristics associated with it.

00:39In terms of the impacts, the coastal inundation, as well as some of a flooding risk from rain and strong winds

00:47are sort of the greatest concerns with this storm, especially the prolonged nature of it in some spots.

00:52And, Dan, here we are Saturday morning at 7 a.m.

00:54This is around when things really begin to go downhill for the Carolinas.

00:57It is. We can see this as we track it northward here.

00:59It starts to go downhill on Saturday.

01:00So if you're in the Carolinas along the coast, especially going to be a very wet and stormy day.

01:05That continues up the coast on Saturday night.

01:07Then the conditions really go downhill starting really early Sunday and then through the day Sunday,

01:12Delmarva, up to the Jersey Shore, places like Atlantic City going to be a very wet and windy day.

01:18Coastal inundation expected, so expect some ponding of water, or it could be even more than ponding.

01:22It could be a couple feet of water in some parts of the streets and some of these barrier islands.

01:26And then we see even the rain gets all the way up to New England come early on Monday,

01:30going to be an impactful storm in parts of southeast New England as well.

01:33So as we kind of just break it down day by day with some of the impacts,

01:38Saturday we're in the early stages of this, but the Outer Banks have had such a hard hurricane season

01:43with really only Chantal as our true landfalling system.

01:46Absolutely. It's been a season without a whole lot of impacts along the east coast north of the Outer Banks.

01:54They've had a lot of beach erosion, a lot of homes falling into the water.

01:56This is our concern, the coastal inundation piece Saturday in the Carolinas and then northward into Sunday.

02:02It's going to be a long period of time with an onshore or an easterly wind.

02:06It could be three or four high tide cycles, so three or four separate high tides that are an easterly wind,

02:12which means you're piling up the water over the course of 36 or 48 hours.

02:16And that's why we're very concerned about several feet of coastal inundation,

02:20not just at the immediate coast where the beaches are, but on the back bays and sounds,

02:24like as you have on some of the barrier islands in New Jersey,

02:26where without that wind slackening, you don't get the discharge of the bays,

02:31and therefore you don't have the water level fall during low tides.

02:34So a very serious concern of major impacts here through the weekend.

02:38And one thing we've kind of been noticing with the storms in many decades of research,

02:43some of these bays, like the Chesapeake Bay, all these jagged chunks of coastline inside the mouth of the bay,

02:49it's almost like a one-way valve that accepts water,

02:52but there's no way for that water to really get out until days after the storm.

02:56How high are we expecting some of the seawater to get here with that onshore wind?

03:01Yeah, so we talk about storm surge of tropical systems,

03:03not necessarily just like one push of water with this particular tropical wind and rainstorm.

03:08So some of this above or this coastal inundation, we're saying one to three feet,

03:12could be up to maybe six feet in a couple spots,

03:15especially probably Jersey Shore most vulnerable to that,

03:17maybe parts of the northern Delmarva could be a concern there.

03:20Some of this water could be just standing in streets for a day or two in some spots where you get a foot or two of water

03:29because the bays just rise and you get the water that comes across the island and some of these barrier islands.

03:33So expect travel troubles with road closures and a lot of beach erosion.

03:37It could be some significant altering to the beaches in this area here through the weekend.

03:41And remember that with Aaron, far offshore, Margate Fire Department made 30 rescues, 30 water rescues there during that event.

03:50They may not have been, in most cases, life-threatening, but still hazardous.

03:53And again, people are in different situations.

03:55Not everybody is as ambulatory as others.

03:57And two or three feet of water could be a huge problem.

04:00For rainfall, you know, we want drought relief, but this is not the way we want to get it.

04:03No, it's not.

04:04And we've had some rain recently, but overall we've been in a dry pattern.

04:08This is a significant end to this dry stretch.

04:10And overall, these totals are not highly concerning from a major flood perspective,

04:14but there can be pockets of flooding from rainfall, especially near the coast.

04:17And we couldn't rule out some urban flooding in places like New York City, parts of Long Island,

04:21down through parts of southern New Jersey and into the Delmarva.

04:25With a couple of inches of rain expected here, looks like the wettest time probably Sunday.

04:29Sunday night's going to be a wind-driven rain, too.

04:31So definitely a very sort of just a nasty, stormy day on Sunday and into Sunday night for parts of the mid-Atlantic.

04:37So as we just kind of wrap this up here, Dan, when it comes to the impacts,

04:40it's certainly the coastline that we're most concerned about.

04:43How does this stack up with our AccuWeather Real Impact Scale rating for hurricanes?

04:47Yeah, the exclusive scale here, we're rating this a 1 on the scale to show the really important impact

04:52from the coastal flooding as well as the gusty winds here.

04:57We're really trying to highlight that risk all the way up in the coastal areas

05:00from the Outer Banks to about Sandy Hook, New Jersey.

05:03So we've rated this a 1, which means there are significant impacts associated with this storm.

05:07And just in contrast, the traditional hurricane wind scale based only on wind, the Saffir-Simpson scale,

05:13no rating for this one again.

05:15But here at AccuWeather, we're very concerned about impacts, life safety, and what this storm means to you.

05:19So, Dan, we appreciate all your insight there, as always.

05:22Thanks.

05:23You're welcome.

05:24Thanks, Dan.

05:25AccuWeather Vice President of Forecasting, Dan DePodwyn.

05:27Good stuff there, Dan.

Category

Transcript

Be the first to comment

Recommended