Slow Moving Hurricane Florence To Bring More Rain To Pittsburgh Area
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PITTSBURGH (KDKA) -- Hurricane Florence has made landfall and has quickly weakened now that most of the storm is over land.
***Updated from Meteorologist Ron Smiley -- Friday 9/14 at 10:30 a.m.***
The storm's relatively slow movement means that the risk of flooding will be prolonged with high rain totals. Pictures coming in from the coast are about as bad as expected with a significant storm surge flooding out a large swatch of the coast.
For W. Pennsylvania I am bumping up expected rain totals to 2"-3" of rain.
The city is now right in the center of the cone of uncertainty with the remnants of Florence moving over W. Pennsylvania on Monday. Unlike last weekend higher rain rates will mean flash flooding may occur along with river flooding once again. KDKA will have the latest on preparations and the forecast for the remnants of Florence throughout the weekend.
***Updated Thursday 9/13 at 12:00 p.m.***
The outer bands of Hurricane Florence are just starting to lash out at the Carolinas, but it won't be long before the slow moving storm drops rain in the Pittsburgh area.
Meteorologist Ron Smiley has the following prediction about Florence:
The storm has weekend to a Category 2 storm with max sustained winds of 105mph.
While max sustained winds have decreased the area of hurricane force winds has increased. Forecasters say that the same type of storm surge expected earlier should still be expected.
The current track for Florence takes the eye of the storm (the strongest most destructive winds) through Bald Head Island and just north of Myrtle Beach. The expectation should be for anything the eye passes over along with anything north and east of there to receive the most destruction.
At this time the storm surge, where winds and the mass of the storm push water forward over beaches and anything that is within 15 – 20 feet from sea level.
The water weakens walls and picks up vehicles, ramming them against each other and causing additional damage.
At this point the secondary concern is rainfall. Model data shows Florence being a very patient storm. The storm is expected to stall out before moving to the north. 15-20 inches of rain will be possible in places like Raleigh.
Over the weekend, remnants of Florence, are expected to move up the Appalachians. By Monday Florence, a slow moving system, will move through Pennsylvania according to model data. The largest rain total comes from the GFS showing 1.5" of rain.
Other models aren't close to that total.
