00:00Hurricane Ifaias, a very significant threat to the central Gulf Coast, is
00:05going to be pretty impactful across most of the eastern third of the nation in
00:08some form. For some of you, Pittsburgh, PA, an inch or two of rain on Sunday, Sunday
00:13night. For others, in Pensacola, a tenacious storm with fierce winds and a
00:18significant storm surge as well. So let's take a look at the latest here. We're
00:22dealing with a storm that has most of the boxes checked regarding strengthening
00:26factors. There's some dry air well west of the storm, but the storm itself is in a
00:32position with a lot of moisture around over the central Gulf. And you can see
00:36the water vapor loop showing us again the greens here where we are dealing with a
00:40saturated air mass in a big way. Alright, I want to take a look at some things that
00:45will be influencing its track and then we'll jump into our forecast path and so
00:50forth. First off, we've locked in on very good agreement now that, again, even though
00:56a few days ago there was a wide variety. Some models brought it in on Sunday
00:59morning, others Friday afternoon. Friday evening and Friday night. Friday night
01:04landfall, very likely, very close to the Florida-Alabama line. So places near Mobile
01:09and especially east of Pensacola. Here we have the GFS, here we have the NAM, and here
01:15we have the European, all at the same time. This would be 8 p.m. Friday, the upper
01:19level vorticity, spin in the atmosphere, signaling pretty good agreement with this
01:24storm. Some influences that are directing it where it is, we have the strong Bermuda-Azores
01:29High off to the east. There is going to be an upper level low that dips into parts of
01:35Texas and our storm is going to be kind of funneled northward between the wickets here,
01:41if you will, with the steering influences of these two systems working in tandem with one
01:46another. So that'll drive this one northward through the Gulf Coast states. Let's take a look
01:52at one factor that, although it will be able to strengthen more as it's over the central
01:58Gulf, it's likely to be impacted by some wind shear when it gets farther north. Now, this
02:04is a map of wind shear. Wind shear winds blowing in different directions or strengths, directions
02:10or intensities at different altitudes. And here we're looking at a combination of the low
02:14level versus the upper level winds. So maybe in the lowest mile or two versus maybe five or
02:20six miles up and how they are in conflict. If they're not in argument with one another,
02:25then the storm can organize and strengthen more. If they are, if there is strong wind shear,
02:30then that can become kind of a headwind or it can be kind of this disruptive force on the storm.
02:35Now, I want to point out this little bit of shear is actually the storm itself. So we should kind
02:41of subtract that out. But the big message here, Friday afternoon, strong wind shear in the
02:45northwestern and far northern Gulf. That is the way it appears in the European. You go to the NAM,
02:50same story. You go to the G, actually, that was the GFS, the NAM and the European, all in good
02:56agreement. And again, this is one of these things that sometimes a little nuanced aspects of the
03:01forecast can be tricky. This is a very straightforward aspect of a response to that big trough that we
03:07know is going to be digging into Texas. And that will be also impacting the upper level flow over the
03:12Gulf Coast, at least along the coast, maybe not so much offshore. And this is the surface depiction
03:17of heavy rain, barometric pressure lines, strong high pressure over eastern Canada. It's been
03:22delightfully dry for some time, but the storm kind of fractures. And as it moves inland, it's cut off
03:28from the energy source being the warm water of the Gulf. And it fans out Sunday, widespread rain into
03:33the northeast. It's a fairly quick mover here because of the steering flow that we discussed.
03:38And I'm going to show you how that is a good thing for our friends in western North Carolina,
03:42who may have some horrible memories about what happened two years ago. So this is not going to
03:48be a repeat of Helene there. Here we are with forward motion after landfall, 11 p.m. Friday night,
03:54eastern, 10 p.m. central. We recognize far western Florida's central time zone. We're going to watch
03:59this come northward pretty swiftly from 11 p.m. to 8 p.m. over, what, 21 hours. You can see
04:05pretty
04:05good movement from the coast all the way up to north of Huntsville. And then another 24 hours from
04:10near Huntsville all the way to near Portsmouth, Ohio. Maybe way east of there, in fact, maybe near
04:17Steubenville, Ohio, or Wheeling, West Virginia, closing in on that area. So I zoomed in and look at
04:21the landfall. Here's landfall. I'm going to get myself out of the way here. We expect landfall to
04:27occur somewhere near Gulf Shores east to Pensacola Beach. You can see the Mobile Metro is certainly in
04:34a big danger zone. Pensacola is in a more precarious spot because, and I'm going to plot the cartoon
04:41here of our hurricane. Keep in mind, it's on a much larger scale than this. If it comes in right
04:48near
04:48the state line, then you have extremely strong onshore winds versus very strong offshore winds.
04:55It could blow out the tide, blow out the water there from Mobile Bay, and shove tremendous seawater
05:00into the area near Pensacola. So again, a 30-mile difference west or east can make a huge difference
05:06in the storm. Pensacola, we're forecasting a 6 to 10-foot storm surge. Worst conditions beginning
05:11to ramp up here Friday evening through Saturday morning. 8 to 12 inches of rain and 100 to 120-mile
05:16-per-hour
05:17wind gusts. Now, some in the Carolinas, the western part of North Carolina. You had a horrible event.
05:22Over 200 people were killed in Helene two years ago. Most of the deaths were tied to flooding.
05:28North Carolina was hit harder than any other state. Here is Helene's track. It took its time and stalled
05:33and faded away with strong upslope flow on the east side of the storm. You can picture the storm
05:40track is in this fashion, circulation, strong upslope flow. We talk about upslope flow a lot.
05:45Now, we're running moisture up the sides of a mountain. Colder air, aloft, can contain less
05:51water vapor, so you hit saturation as the air cools upon ascent, and that produces more cloud
05:56production, more rainfall. It squeezes out the moisture in a severe way. Now, two years ago,
06:01before Helene, we had a rain event that led to serious flooding. 8 to 12 inches of rain before the
06:07storm even came in. This is very different. We've had high pressure. It's bone dry in western North
06:12Carolina. And the other thing I mentioned earlier, I'm going to go back to this graphic here,
06:15is that the steering flow will more swiftly move this storm along. So there will be serious flooding
06:22in western North Carolina. It will be dangerous. There will be flash flood warnings. We're forecasting
06:264 to 8 inches of rain, but we're not forecasting 20 to 30 inches. So Saturday, a nasty day,
06:32not just along the coast, through the Carolina. Strong upslope flow. It's going to be dangerous,
06:37but it won't compare to what we had with Helene. We're looking at 4 to 8 inches of rain. That
06:42will
06:42lead to big flooding in western North Carolina, but not to the likes of what we experienced two
06:47years ago. And here is your impact. AccuWeather Real Impact Scale Rating of 2 for the Gulf Coast.
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