00:00So let's kick this off here with a look at what's going on from her perspective.
00:05We have team coverage of the season's first Nor'easter, and we do begin yet again in southeastern Virginia
00:10where millions of Virginians were impacted by coastal flooding.
00:13There was some damaging wind, dangerous surf, and severe beach erosion.
00:17Yeah, that's where we find AccuWeather correspondent Leslie Hudson, who joins us from Virginia Beach.
00:21Leslie, you took us all around the area yesterday showing us a lot of the coastal flooding and the wind.
00:26What has changed today?
00:30Well, the one thing, Anna, if I had to, you know, quantify it in a certain way, it's gotten kicked
00:35up a notch for sure today.
00:37The winds are tighter, higher, gustier.
00:41The sand whipping, you know, cutting across your face if you actually turn into the sand.
00:45We have not had a lot of rain.
00:47I know we've talked about this, how this has been a dry, relatively dry system for this region of Virginia.
00:54But, boy, have we had the flooding and have we had the winds.
00:57And we still have it going now.
01:00You can see it's pretty windy out here.
01:01The wind's easily gusting 30 to 35.
01:03I checked the airport observations, and they were in the low 30s this afternoon.
01:09So, again, it has been very windy.
01:12And the one thing that this whole event has shown us is that you don't have to have a nor
01:16'easter, a coastal storm,
01:18to actually make landfall on a region for it to have lasting impacts.
01:21So, we've shown you that with the tidal flooding that has been inundating parts of downtown Norfolk.
01:28But here along the Virginia Beach Boardwalk, we also have been dealing with a lot of the blustery weather that
01:35I've been telling you about,
01:36where it has been just an onslaught of onshore wind.
01:40And it has been going on for three days now.
01:43And that has just been battering this coastline, which, by the way, has been undergoing a re-nourishment project since
01:502001.
01:52In 2019, they spent about $23 million to ramp up the sand dunes here and refurbish about a million cubic
02:01pounds of sand.
02:04And then they had the bad nor'easter last year.
02:08Most of the folks I've talked to today in the last couple of days that deal with this kind of
02:12stuff do think this particular event was a little less intense than the one last year.
02:17But certainly, we have had our fair share of rough weather here.
02:21And some of the stats that I wanted to tell you about is the peak wind gusts that we saw
02:25here in the Virginia Beach-Hampton Roads area was about 51 miles per hour.
02:29And that was recorded at Cape Henry.
02:30Offshore winds, the highest ones were about 13 to 15 feet and about 1 to 1 1⁄2 inches to up
02:38to 3 inches in localized areas of rainfall across Hampton Roads.
02:41And it has been a system that has been struggling to drain those tidal floodwaters.
02:47We talked to some residents and hear what they had to say about that.
02:51This is definitely a strong storm.
02:53As I was watching you do your broadcast, I was watching the surf come up over your head in the
03:02background.
03:04It's quite an event.
03:09So, the wave heights, again, anywhere from 10 to 14 feet here in the Virginia Beach area.
03:15Of course, the high tide cycles is when we're starting to see those tidal flooding events.
03:21We have another high tide here tonight.
03:23This also has had an impact along the community.
03:26Several of the county schools in York County were closed today and yesterday to keep the kiddos off the road,
03:32keep those buses off the roads as well.
03:34There's also been limited traffic in terms of the officials here trying to keep folks to stay home if they
03:41can, just to stay off the roads.
03:42Because, again, a lot of the roads are impassable, especially in those low-lying areas.
03:47And, of course, we're expecting probably another day, a half a day of this kind of nuisance flooding.
03:53A little bit, I would say, a step up from nuisance flooding.
03:55Some of the flooding has been pretty deep that we've seen.
03:57But it should start to markedly improve, as you guys know, as the nor'easter tracks up towards the north.
04:02For now, we're reporting from Virginia Beach.
04:04Virginia, we'll send it back over to you.
04:07All right, Aki, with our correspondent, Leslie Hudson.
04:09Lots of amazing sights and scenes over the past few days here.
04:12Yeah, great job covering this for us.
04:13And thank you, as always, for the update.
04:15Let's take you to North Carolina's Outer Banks now, giving you a view from Rodanthe.
04:19This is another area where, yeah, we're sure seeing the impacts, Jeff.
04:22Malachia, yeah.
04:23Go, look.
04:23I love you.
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