Hurricane Helene makes landfall in Apalachee Bay, Florida. Notifications: Live updates

Ryan Truchelut
| WeatherTiger

Hurricane Helene is expected to strengthen into a destructive Category 3 hurricane as it approaches the Tallahassee area and Florida’s Big Bend and is expected to make landfall late Thursday.

Helene poses the risk of life-threatening storm surge, damaging winds and flash flooding along the entire west coast of Florida and the Big Bend, the NHC reported. The highest levels of flooding and potentially catastrophic hurricane-force winds are expected along the Big Bend coast.

Dr. Tallahassee-based WeatherTiger’s Ryan Truchelut is tracking Helene to landfall on the coast of Big Bend, Florida, and offers this ongoing analysis of what to expect leading up to landfall.

Here’s the latest.

The NHC issued the interim notice a few minutes earlier at 2 p.m., which is normal. (We call this a “medium” advisory because, unlike the full advisory packages typically issued at 5 and 11 a.m. and 5 and 11 p.m., these NHC products do not provide an updated progression and intensity forecast. They will issued at 3 a.m. Enter the mid-hour between the 5s and 11s (the 2s and 8s) to update intensity, positions and warnings.

The 2 p.m. bulletin shows estimated sustained winds in Helene have increased an additional 5 mph to about 110 mph, just shy of Category 3 status on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale, which , as I highlighted this week, isn’t the case due to its enormous size, it’s not really the right yardstick to judge Helene. Pressure measured by NOAA Hurricane Hunters continues to steadily decline and is now below 960 millibars. The bottom line is that Helene is recovering as expected.

Helene is a tropical threat spanning four quadrants, causing widespread and significant flooding, wind, rain and tornado impacts. I’ll address each of these threats individually over the next few hours, but let’s start with a look at the National Weather Service observations and warnings that apply to each impact, starting with wind and storms.

As for winds, the NHC’s new “experimental” cone is a beautiful visual summary of the incredible size of Helene’s wind field and the threat the hurricane poses to a huge swath of the southeastern United States. A hurricane warning is in effect for central and eastern Florida Panhandle, Big Bend and the northern Nature Coast, as well as the southwestern quarter of Georgia and a swath of southeastern Alabama. A tropical storm warning is in effect for the rest of Florida, with the exception of the Lucky Ducks in Destin and Pensacola, the rest of Georgia, all of South Carolina, some of western North Carolina and a little more of eastern Alabama. This is due to Helene’s strength, size, and probably more than 25 mph forward speed upon landing. I’m not sure I’ve ever seen a larger area with tropical wind warnings at the same time.

All that wind is pushing a wall of water through the eastern Gulf into Apalachee Bay, and storm surge warnings are in effect from Cape San Blas to Everglades National Park. If you have received a warning and an evacuation order, hopefully you have already put it together. If not, you still have a few hours to do it safely. The wall of water is coming and you need to be far enough inland to not be in it tonight. West Central and Southwest Florida are already experiencing a significant increase, as I will show in a future post.

If you haven’t read my forecasts before today, I’m Ryan Truchelut, chief meteorologist at WeatherTiger, a Tallahassee-based weather consulting and forecasting company, and I’ve been preparing for days like this my entire life.

➤ Weather warnings via SMS: Sign up to receive updates on current storms and weather events by location

I’ve been in the hotseat for all of Florida’s worst hurricanes of the last decade: Irma, Michael, Dorian, Ian, Idalia. I have been researching hurricanes for over 15 years and completed the meteorology doctoral program at FSU. I lived through Hurricane Charley. However, I have never walked through the eyewall of a Category 3+ hurricane in Tallahassee, as the last time that happened was (probably) in 1842.

Over the next 10 hours or so, I will regularly update this page with up-to-the-minute meteorological developments: the latest NHC advisories, National Weather Service warnings, local observations from across Florida, and forecast insights on all aspects of this catastrophic storm.

My goal is to keep you safe by providing accurate, real-time, unobtrusive information until Helene moves out of Florida or, more realistically, until the flow of bits, bytes and electrons stops here at WeatherTiger World headquarters in southeast Tallahassee. My house is on high ground 20 miles from the Gulf. So I’m confident in my physical safety, but I’m not sure if my ability to communicate will last throughout the night. It all depends on where Helene’s core goes and how strong it is. I’ll keep posting until I can’t post anymore, which is really all any of us can do.

If you’re just getting caught up in Hurricane Helene, there was a lot going on this morning. According to the NHC’s 11 a.m. bulletin, Helene has strengthened to a Category 2 hurricane with estimated maximum sustained winds of 105 mph, and it continues to strengthen this afternoon as it accelerates north-northeast toward Apalachee Bay. The eyewall will likely reach the Big Bend shoreline around 8 p.m., with Helene’s center likely crossing the central shore of Apalachee Bay before midnight.

Helene is a gigantic hurricane with tropical-storm-force winds that extends nearly 350 miles southeast of the center. These winds are currently spreading across much of South and Central Florida and tropical storm and coastal storm surge warnings are in effect. For North Florida and West Central Florida, where storm surge and hurricane warnings are in effect, the weather will deteriorate this afternoon, with truly life-threatening conditions developing into the evening hours. By late afternoon you should have sheltered on the Nature Coast, Big Bend and the Eastern Panhandle.

Folks, we are in a historically difficult situation, facing the greatest hurricane threat to the Big Bend in approximately 180 years, a storm that dwarfs last year’s Idalia in magnitude and impact. I feel the same fear, anxiety and fear as many of you. My job is to try to make this terrible experience a little less miserable and traumatic by telling you directly and unfiltered what will happen to Helene and when.

Let’s get through this together. I’ll be back in about 20 minutes to deal with current conditions and upcoming threats.”

(This story has been updated to add new information.)

Dr. Ryan Truchelut is chief meteorologist at WeatherTiger, a Tallahassee company that provides forensic meteorological expert services as well as agricultural and hurricane forecast subscription services. Visit Weathertiger.com for more information. Email Truchelut at [email protected].

Stay informed. Receive weather alerts via SMS

Support local journalism by subscribing to a Florida news organization

Hurricane Helene makes landfall in Apalachee Bay, Florida. Notifications: Live updates

ByJasper

Stay informed. Receive weather alerts via SMS

By Jasper

Related Post

Dodgers win NL West, but Freddie Freeman goes out with injury

Flood watch canceled for some central Alabama counties: The Alabama Weather Blog

Hurricane Helene Tracker: One dead as catastrophic Category 4 storm makes landfall in Florida

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

You missed

Dodgers win NL West, but Freddie Freeman goes out with injury

Flood watch canceled for some central Alabama counties: The Alabama Weather Blog

Hurricane Helene Tracker: One dead as catastrophic Category 4 storm makes landfall in Florida

Why Luke Bryan, Parker McCollum + More Love are a joke on TV