00:00Before we get into each specific impact, let's start with what Jeff was just showing.
00:05While the storm is currently gaining strength, it will slightly lose wind intensity before making landfall.
00:11But tell us and tell viewers what that means, right?
00:16When you hear a storm losing intensity, it sounds, I guess, better than it is.
00:20It is, and that's certainly not what we want the message to be.
00:23A storm takes a while to build up energy, and just as it takes time to build up energy, it
00:27takes time to lose that energy.
00:28So just because it might lose 5 or 10 miles of wind speed before Isaias makes landfall later on this
00:34evening,
00:34because it has gained intensity this morning and is still strengthening over the gulf,
00:38it will take time to wind all that energy down.
00:42And there's plenty of water that's being built up now with those winds,
00:44and that's why the surge is a real concern for us.
00:47That water drives, the wind rather, drives the water into the coast.
00:51And storm surge, anything over 4, 5, 6 feet is considered basically life-threatening storm surge
00:56because I'm about 6 feet tall, and you're talking about a water rise above average of 6 feet
01:01with then the waves on top of that.
01:05So there is a bit of protection in this area due to the barrier islands along the Florida panhandle,
01:11but that still, some of those can be overtopped or significantly impacted by this,
01:16what we expect to be 6 to 10 feet of storm surge near and just east of where Isaias makes
01:20landfall later on tonight.
01:21Yeah, Dan, really important there to not focus on the storm losing its wind intensity
01:26because, as you said, it has been just churning and churning and building up the wind intensity
01:31over the last several days.
01:33Let's talk about wind.
01:34Now, we do have it zoomed in here to where the strongest winds will be.
01:39Let's talk about that area in darkest purple of over 100 miles per hour,
01:43what that could look like in Pensacola.
01:45But then what do 60 to 80 mile wind gusts look like in, say, Montgomery while further inland?
01:49Yeah, this whole area basically in the darker purples, even extending all the way up to Montgomery
01:53and even closer to Birmingham, can experience significant power outages.
01:57Obviously, the most significant wind impacts will be right near that core of where the storm makes landfall.
02:02And this is very destructive winds.
02:04You can have significant property damage from wind gusts over 100 miles per hour.
02:08And these power outages could last for days, if not a week or more.
02:11So it's certainly going to be something, if you're in these areas,
02:14to make sure you're well prepared to be without power for many days,
02:16have medicines and any other types of materials that you will need to be without power over that time period.
02:22And these power outages extend well inland away from where the landfall point is,
02:28although they will not be as widespread.
02:29Anyone really across the Tennessee Valley, even up the spine of the Appalachians,
02:32due to wind gusts of 40 to 50 or 55 miles per hour, can experience localized power outages.
02:38That's more likely on Saturday into Saturday night,
02:40where the landfall risk is Friday night into early Saturday for those power outages.
02:45And Dan, can you explain what RT means that the potential for long-term power outages,
02:50how long-term could we expect?
02:52I think in the area here where we're highlighting in the widespread close to the Gulf Coast,
02:57in some places it's probably a bit more than a week.
02:59We see this in most cases with landfalling tropical systems.
03:02If you head farther inland, it's probably a couple days in some of these spots.
03:05But the southern half of Alabama, there could be most of this area that could be without power
03:09for at least a couple of days due to Isaias.
03:12Wow. All right. That's a shocking number there.
03:14So people need to be prepared.
03:16All right. With tropical storms, with hurricanes,
03:19it's not surprising in the world of forecasting meteorology that there are tornadoes.
03:23What makes Isaias and the tornado risk with this storm more significant?
03:27Yeah, certain storms produce tornadoes. Other ones don't tend to.
03:30What we look for is a lot of spin in the atmosphere,
03:32which tends to exist with tropical systems,
03:34but especially when you're dealing with moisture coming in from both the Gulf
03:37and we have moisture coming in from the Atlantic,
03:39low-level moisture is very important to tornado formation.
03:42That's why we're concerned not just about the area near landfall,
03:45but even much farther east here across much of Georgia and South Carolina
03:49where there is a tornado risk.
03:50There could be at least several, if not maybe a dozen or more,
03:53tornado reports over the next couple of days.
03:55Even in this area here on Sunday as Isaias moves off to the north,
03:59we still have plentiful moisture streaming into the Carolinas here,
04:02and that's why we're concerned about spin-up tornadoes.
04:04They're usually not as strong as some of the ones you see in the plains
04:07during the spring, but they nevertheless can cause damage
04:09and obviously something you'd want to take shelter
04:11if you receive a tornado warning through the AccuWeather app, for instance,
04:15over the next couple of days.
04:16And it's important to have a way to receive these warnings.
04:20Vice President of Forecast Operations, Dan McPodwin,
04:23thank you so much for helping break that down,
04:25the impacts here with Isaias over the coming days.
04:28We appreciate it.
