‘Catastrophic’ Category 4 Hurricane Helene to hit Florida and the Southeast

Hurricane Helene rapidly strengthened into a Category 4 storm over the Gulf of Mexico's record-warm waters Thursday and is speeding toward landfall Thursday night to the south-southeast of Tallahassee.

Threat level: The large storm is forecast to bring an unprecedented 15-to-20-foot storm surge to Florida's Big Bend area. It will also bring high winds to all of Florida and plow inland with hurricane-force wind gusts likely in north Georgia, potentially including Atlanta.

• The National Weather Service is calling the maximum storm surge forecast for the Big Bend region of Florida "catastrophic and unsurvivable." The surge has already begun along the west coast of the state.

• Flooding rains are already affecting the southern Appalachians, with rainfall totals around 15 inches expected in western North Carolina. Such rainfall amounts will cause landslides and historic flooding.

• Tampa Bay is forecast to see one of its most severe storm surge events on record, with up to 8 feet of surge.
The Atlanta metro area faces one of its most significant encounters with a hurricane or tropical storm on record, with hurricane-force wind gusts anticipated.

• These winds would lead to widespread tree damage, though the exact track of the storm's core will help determine the full impacts there through Friday.

State of play: As of 6:30pm ET, the storm was strengthening and is expected to be at Category 4 intensity at landfall. It is expected to hit the Florida Big Bend coast this evening as the strongest storm on record there.

The National Hurricane Center noted the storm size is at the "upper bound" of all storm sizes observed in the Gulf of Mexico.

• The storm's center was located about 115 miles west of Tampa and was moving north-northeast at 21 mph.

• Top sustained winds were at 125 mph. The NHC expects additional strengthening from this storm before landfall.

• As of 6:30pm, more than 271,000 customers were without power in Florida, with outages expanding north.

Between the lines: Helene's expansive wind field is powering the potentially deadly storm surge.

• The storm built its inner core of strongest winds and has rapidly intensified during the day Thursday, the NHC stated, a trend forecast to continue through landfall.

• With tropical storm and hurricane warnings in effect for more than three states, power outages may encompass more than one million people by Saturday.

• The NWS forecast office in Greenville-Spartanburg, S.C. issued a dire statement Thursday afternoon warning of the historic flood threat facing western North Carolina, including Asheville: "This will be one of the most significant weather events to happen in the western portions of the area in the modern era. Record flooding is forecasted and has been compared to the floods of 1916 in the Asheville area," the NWS stated.

Zoom in: Numerous major cities, including Tallahassee, Tampa, Jacksonville and Atlanta are likely to see strong, damaging winds from this storm.

• Tallahassee may see its most damaging hurricane on record due to extremely high winds, depending on the landfall location and track.

• The storm will be moving at an unusually fast rate of speed at and soon after landfall, as it rotates around a weather system over the Southeast.

• This will bring the threat of significant damage, including widespread power outages, well inland through nearly the entire state of Georgia and much of South Carolina.

• NWS is warning the power outages are likely to be "prolonged" in addition to widespread.

• The water temperature in the storm's path is extremely warm at 86°F, the NHC noted.

• There has been a documented trend toward more storms that rapidly intensify and an amplification of the intensification rates in the Atlantic as well. (Source: Axios)