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Tropical Major Hurricane Helene

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LickWx said:
Is there anyway to even rebuild some of these roads or towns? Like chimney rock, where do you build when on both sides are steep eroded slopes and what was once buildable collapsed into the river
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Environmental agencies are going to want to claim some of these new river beds. River flow has changed. In many cases you won’t be able to rebuild your home or rebuild a road. If you sailed over on the Mayflower and sent out an expedition into WNC to find a place to build a town, would you choose one of these places if the landscape looked the way it did right now? We saw a thousand years worth of landscape alteration in a couple hours
 
rburrel2 said:
Did nhc ever come out and explain why they went against modeling and made such a bad forecast the day before the storm?
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it will be months, if not years. suffice to say there will be plenty of studies on this storm that will leave no stone unturned regarding synoptics, intensification, mountain meteorology, ull interaction, quantifying how much climate change juiced this, communication/messaging, etc. it's the kind of event my old synoptic professor would assign as a capstone event to analyze. but for now i think it would be in bad taste for the nhc or anyone affiliated to be spitballing about what went wrong with the eastward tug. one disconnect is that the core became decoupled from the actual LLC center as it trudged inland, so the forecast may have "technically" been alright but tell that to people in spartanburg.
NCSNOW said:
@ Met1985, How did the area from Cullowhee back up to Highlands/Cashiers then down to Dillsboro fare? The Tuskegee River. I saw that area river flood with mini icebergs post 1993 Superstorm. Can't imagine it did any better from this. Rural area back up to Highlands/Cashiers from Cullowhee
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i'm also interested in this. growing up when my fam went to the mountains we would take 74 the entire way from wilmington to dillsboro and stay at the best western on the river. fond memories of waking up and screwing around on the bank and waving to the rafters. growing up i was also a big train guy and we would take the train from dillsboro that traced along the tuckasegee (forget the terminus). i really love that area, doing random "gem mining", driving along that highway with all the waterfalls around franklin. my first guess is that they had bad but not unprecedented flooding based on where the core of helene wound up.
NCSNOW said:
Helli's being turned away, no reason giving. Glenn covers this subject about private Helli's being shewed away and unfortunately all those here-says are true. Dont understand why, Hellis are your ambulance service next several months at minimum.
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don't want to wade too far into this arena but I've read that the air traffic in the mountains is substantial, someone compared it jokingly to Newark. i know the private hellis are well meaning but this is probably a precaution so the airspace isn't so clogged up
 
The flood maps will be redrawn throughout the region over the next few years. It's a pretty simple solution really and much like the coast. Houses will be constructed higher or not at all in some areas because the cost of flood insurance will discourage the market. The goverment doesn't need to come in and take anything, by reclassifying flood prone areas they effectively are able to do that, it just plays out over a longer period of time. The 500 year flood line will probably be the 100 year flood line now.

I've already started a few projects up there for the local government(free of charge) redesigning culverts that have been blown out. Everything will be upsized now and designed better moving forward. The infrastructure will improve, not dissappear.
 
Downeastnc said:
Looking at the sat imagery its clear that geologically speaking this level of flooding has not happened in a very very long time, definitely thousands if not 10's of thousands of years. There will be no rebuilding in many of these locations, they will have to literally start new versions of these towns where they can find suitable land which typically is found in valleys alongside streams and rivers etc...
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It completely changed river channels, essentially the river now runs through what was the main strip in Chimney Rock, saw other examples of this when looking at Sat comparisons from a couple weeks ago, so it’s not an isolated case. And the velocity needed to move those boulders is just nuts, I have a chart laying around somewhere on water velocities required to move different objects, basically everything from sediment particles up through VW bug sized boulders, if I can find it I’ll post it.
 
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WeatherNC said:
It completely changed river channels, essentially the river now runs through what was the main strip in Chimney Rock, saw other examples on this when looking at Sat comparisons from a couple weeks ago, so it’s not an isolated case. And the velocity needed to love those boulders is just nuts, I have a chart laying around somewhere on water velocities required to move different objects, basically everything from sediment particles up through VW but sized boulders, if I can find it I’ll post it.
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Yeah when they say unprecedented, they mean literally unprecedented...while I grew up and live in eastern NC my grandfather is from the mts of NC/VA and we spent weeks every year up there. Chimney Rock was always the first place we went, its hard to imagine something as timeless and old as those mts being able to be so drastically altered in a single day...we were actually suppose to go up this coming week for a few days to stay with my in laws at their campsite in Cherokee but they left last week before the storm and obviously are not going back anytime soon.
 
I might be overdramatic but the impacts to of Helene to WNC might end up being worst than Katrina overall, way worse, given the previous statements earlier and just the topography of the area making cleaning up and rebuilding/building new infrastructure difficult to say the least.
 
ILMRoss said:
it will be months, if not years. suffice to say there will be plenty of studies on this storm that will leave no stone unturned regarding synoptics, intensification, mountain meteorology, ull interaction, quantifying how much climate change juiced this, communication/messaging, etc. it's the kind of event my old synoptic professor would assign as a capstone event to analyze. but for now i think it would be in bad taste for the nhc or anyone affiliated to be spitballing about what went wrong with the eastward tug. one disconnect is that the core became decoupled from the actual LLC center as it trudged inland, so the forecast may have "technically" been alright but tell that to people in spartanburg.

i'm also interested in this. growing up when my fam went to the mountains we would take 74 the entire way from wilmington to dillsboro and stay at the best western on the river. fond memories of waking up and screwing around on the bank and waving to the rafters. growing up i was also a big train guy and we would take the train from dillsboro that traced along the tuckasegee (forget the terminus). i really love that area, doing random "gem mining", driving along that highway with all the waterfalls around franklin. my first guess is that they had bad but not unprecedented flooding based on where the core of helene wound up.

don't want to wade too far into this arena but I've read that the air traffic in the mountains is substantial, someone compared it jokingly to Newark. i know the private hellis are well meaning but this is probably a precaution so the airspace isn't so clogged up
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That’s all fine. But this wasn’t an unexplainable or unexpected miss… the llc tracked exactly where the model consensus showed it going the day before.

It was the NHC who went out on a proverbial limb and defied modeling to show it tracking so far to the west.

Also please don’t confuse me asking about this with respect to whether or not people were adequately warned or not. This is just a pure meteorological forecasting question I’d like to see answered. For normal people I agree it didn’t or shouldn’t have made much difference in their preparation. And the nws offices did a great job beating the drum as hard as they could to warn people, imo.
 
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I’m not down playing this event, but I don’t think Katrina is an accurate comparison in either a human scale or metrogogical way.

Katrina was a disaster of engineering and storm surge.

Helene was a complex storm that combined with another weather event, to make it much worse, along with the geography of the mountains.

I’d more compare the event to:

1. 2015 SC floods
2. 2009 Atlanta floods
3. 2016 (maybe 17) floods in West Virginia
4. 2016 baton rogue floods
5. Even Harvey and the flooding of Houston


All of these events make more sense than Katrina
 
This storm is a lot different than Katrina. This storm was just massive in size and the scope of things.
We had 3 full days of torrential rainfall. We had wind that we rarely see here in the mountains. Heck we had bonified tornadoes here in the mountains. Tyler Penland recorded one in blowing rock.
If things don't get to some of these communities very very soon this is going to become a humanitarian crisis here especially with Buncombe counties water system being out. And that's just 1 of 25 counties under a state of emergency. I've talked to people from various places like Madison County who say they aren't expecting power back until November 1st.... A whole community going without power for over a month... We are still without power in my community and it looks like maybe just maybe power might be restored next week sometime...
Everything is different here in the mountains than along the coast. We have a complex makeup of valleys and ridges everywhere through here. Mudslides are a big problem and having whole bridges and roads being washed out is creating a horrific scene. This storm and the impacts to WNC will be studied for years to come.
 
WeatherNC said:
It completely changed river channels, essentially the river now runs through what was the main strip in Chimney Rock, saw other examples on this when looking at Sat comparisons from a couple weeks ago, so it’s not an isolated case. And the velocity needed to love those boulders is just nuts, I have a chart laying around somewhere on water velocities required to move different objects, basically everything from sediment particles up through VW but sized boulders, if I can find it I’ll post it.
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I don't have velocity numbers but I know the discharge on rivers across the regions were incredible. For example the South Toe's discharge hit 18,400 cubic ft/sec before the sensor went down. It could have easily peaked in the 20-30k range. For those who aren't familiar with discharge, it's the volume of water flowing through a river at a given time. To put this in perspective, the Potomac at DC averages ~11,000 cfs, and the Hudson at NYC is ~20,000 cfs. I can't find any sensors near Chimney Rock but at a glance the South Toe and Broad look similar in size. You basically had the equivalent of the Hudson River flowing through that tight valley which is mind-boggling.

South Toe River Near Celo, NC

Monitoring location 03463300 is associated with a Stream in Yancey County, North Carolina. Current conditions of Discharge, Gage height, and Stream water level elevation above NAVD 1988 are available. Water data back to 1957 are available online.
waterdata.usgs.gov waterdata.usgs.gov
 
Chazwin said:
I have seen anything yet, but I’m guessing there will be something in the storm case study when it’s released. Let me say that as critical as I have been about the NHC forecast of the storm track, I don’t believe it made a big difference in the amount of rainfall and flooding experienced in WNC. I do think that it was a big deal for people in the Augusta area and NE GA and SC Upstate… those areas experienced a direct hit from what was left of the storm’s eyewall, something that by the NHC tracks should have happened a good 100+ miles west
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It’s not good down here in South GA. Pine forest wiped, orchards wiped out, and chicken houses wiped out. A lot of lively hoods have been lost and communities that already weren’t the wealthiest. Most of these communities in South GA weren’t prepared for what they got because they expected the track to stay west. It’s a disaster from Florida to North Carolina that’ll take years to recover from.
 
RDUHeatIsland said:
I don't have velocity numbers but I know the discharge on rivers across the regions were incredible. For example the South Toe's discharge hit 18,400 cubic ft/sec before the sensor went down. It could have easily peaked in the 20-30k range. For those who aren't familiar with discharge, it's the volume of water flowing through a river at a given time. To put this in perspective, the Potomac at DC averages ~11,000 cfs, and the Hudson at NYC is ~20,000 cfs. I can't find any sensors near Chimney Rock but at a glance the South Toe and Broad look similar in size. You basically had the equivalent of the Hudson River flowing through that tight valley which is mind-boggling.

South Toe River Near Celo, NC

Monitoring location 03463300 is associated with a Stream in Yancey County, North Carolina. Current conditions of Discharge, Gage height, and Stream water level elevation above NAVD 1988 are available. Water data back to 1957 are available online.
waterdata.usgs.gov waterdata.usgs.gov
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I posted same kind of data for Swannanoa and Catawba rivers - in which both broke record flows and heights. Pretty impressive -

Swannanoa River at Biltmore

water.noaa.gov water.noaa.gov

Catawba River near Pleasant Gardens

water.noaa.gov water.noaa.gov
 
I read that FEMA disaster assistance was paying out to those with food spoilage losses due to very long power outages. This has nothing to do with the NFIP. This doesn’t sound right but I was asked to find out. Does anyone know?
 
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