Helene quickly strengthens as it makes landfall and hits Florida’s Big Bend as the strongest hurricane ever

Hurricane Helene quickly strengthened into a Category 4 hurricane with speeds of 140 miles per hour over the northeastern Gulf of Mexico on Thursday, hitting Florida’s Big Bend just before midnight, becoming the strongest hurricane on record.

In the 24 hours before landfall, Helene’s winds increased by 55 mph and central pressure fell by 34 mb to an exceptionally low 938 mb.

In terms of central pressure, Helene was the ninth strongest hurricane to hit Florida since 1900 and the most intense to hit the country’s most hurricane-prone state since Category 5 Hurricane Michael in 2018.

Helene was also the third hurricane to hit Florida’s Big Bend in the past 13 months; Category 3 Hurricane Idalia struck in August 2023 and Category 1 Hurricane Debby hit just 53 days ago, both less than 25 miles from where Helene made landfall late Thursday.

Record-breaking storm surge

The low pressure in Helene created a particularly broad wind field, with tropical storm-force winds extending over 450 miles wide at the time of landfall, making the hurricane one of the largest landfalling U.S. hurricanes in modern records.

The strong winds swept a catastrophic storm surge onto the shallow continental shelf along Florida’s Gulf Coast, causing devastating and extremely widespread flooding through late Thursday.

Storm surge records were broken at long-term tide stations from the Tampa area north to Cedar Key and Steinhatchee. Below are peak storm surge values ​​at available levels during Helene, resulting in storm surge flooding over normally dry land, along with previous record holders:

Cedar key: 9.29 feet (previous record 6.89 feet during Hurricane Idalia; records go back to 1914)

Clearwater Beach: 6.67 feet (previous record 4.02 feet during the Storm of the Century in March 1993; records back to 1973)

East Bay (Tampa): 7.2 feet (previous record 4.56 feet during Hurricane Idalia; records go back to 2019)

Old Port Tampa: 6.83 feet (previous record 4.18 feet during Hurricane Idalia; records go back to 1996)

St Petersburg: 6.31 feet (previous record 3.97 feet during Hurricane Elena; records go back to 1947)

A gauge along the Steinhatchee River at Riverside Drive in Steinhatchee reached 9.63 feet above ground level, or MHHW, a record for the gauge, before transmission went out around 11:30 p.m. ET as the water was still rising.

There are few tide gauges in this part of Florida, so we won’t know the full extent and actual peak of the storm surge in Helene until survey crews are able to reach the area in the coming days.

Based on available data and early photos of widespread storm surge destruction in places like Cedar Key, these are almost certain areas of the Big Bend – particularly east of St. Marks in places like Fish Creek, Steinhatchee, Horseshoe Beach, Suwannee and Cedar Key — saw the full extent of the 15- to 20-foot storm surge predicted by the National Hurricane Center.

Helene’s core is slipping east of Tallahassee

Helene has spared Florida’s capital city from its most destructive eastern side, centered about 50 miles east of Tallahassee.

Just after midnight, winds gusted up to 67 miles per hour in the capital, but hurricane conditions remained further east.

The highest gusts reported so far from Helene came from Perry, Florida, about 10 miles inland from where Helene came ashore.

Wind gusts gusted to 99 mph at Perry-Foley Airport just minutes after Helene’s official landing and gusted to 104 mph on the 11-foot mast of a Doppler on Wheels, or DOW mobile weather instrument, at Perry Airport.

As Helene raced inland, it brought wind gusts of up to 96 miles per hour to parts of southern Georgia near Valdosta. Just before dawn Friday, winds gusted up to 82 miles per hour at Bush Field in Augusta, Georgia, more than 250 miles north of where Helene had landed six hours earlier.

Hurricane hunting drones capture the worst part of Helene

Much of Helene’s hustle and bustle over land was muffled by friction and by the extensive tree canopy that covered northern Florida and southern Georgia.

Over water, manned hurricane hunters flying the hurricane were rocked by Helene’s full force, but managed to drop an unmanned drone into the eye of Helene at its peak Thursday evening.

The drone quickly descended and skimmed over the ocean’s surface, where it measured wind gusts of up to 155 mph (250 km/h) before plunging into the Gulf as planned.

Although the data from these new, expendable drones is preliminary and subject to adjustment, it allows meteorologists to measure winds at the dangerous interface where spray from towering ocean waves touches the air in major hurricanes, an extremely low altitude common to conventional hurricanes Crew are far too dangerous to fly fighter planes.

Flash flood disasters extend into the southern Appalachians

Flash flood warnings were in effect for northern Georgia and the southern Appalachians early Friday, with over a half-dozen flash flood emergencies, including a flash flood emergency due to ongoing flooding throughout the city of Atlanta.

More than 20 inches of rain has fallen, according to radar, with some of the highest totals so far in the Piedmont and Sandhills of South Carolina and the western mountains of North Carolina east of Asheville.

The threat of flash flooding will continue today across northern Georgia and the mountains of western Carolina, with the potential for catastrophic flooding and significant landslides in areas of steep terrain.

Isaac becomes a hurricane, Joyce forms up and watches the Gulf (again) for the next week

While Helene moved inland overnight, Isaac strengthened in the open North Atlantic to become the 6th hurricane of the 2024 season. Isaac could continue to strengthen, but will move into the North Atlantic graveyard next week and poses no threat to landfall.

Meanwhile, Tropical Storm Joyce formed over the Central Atlantic late Friday morning, but is turning north and poses no threat of landfall.

Next week we return to the Gulf, where models show it is another system rising northward from the western Caribbean.

It’s still early, but computer models suggest some development is possible over the extreme southern Gulf or western Caribbean by mid to late next week. We’ll have more details once we get a clearer picture next week.

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