"Not good to see": Hurricane Florence worries experts

WASHINGTON – To prepare for a monstrous storm like the Carolinas, you need a handful of ingredients – and Florence has them all.

Warmer than normal sea temperatures add energy and rain to the storm. Check.

A wind pattern that allows a storm to become strong and stay strong. Check.

Higher sea levels to aggravate a storm surge. Check.

A storm covering a huge area, to soak and whip more people. Check.

And an unusual combination of other weather systems likely to block Florence when she strikes the Carolinas, allowing her to sit for days and dump huge amounts of rain. Check.

"The longer it stays, the more wind, the more it rains, which means that the more trees that fall, the more power failures," said the director of the National Center. hurricanes, Ken Graham.

"This one really scares me," Graham said. "It's one of those situations where you're going to have heavy rains, a catastrophic, deadly storm surge, and winds."

The National Hurricane Center, Tuesday afternoon, has increased its precipitation forecast to 15 to 25 inches of rain and 35 inches in isolated locations. But a computer simulation known as the European model predicts that some places could reach 45 inches. This seems unlikely It's the same model that accurately predicted that last year's Hurricane Harvey, which also stagnated over land, would have dropped 60 inches.

"It sounds a bit like Harvey getting into freewheeling and then stopping abruptly," said Kerry Emanuel, professor of meteorology and hurricane specialist at MIT. "It's not a pretty show."

Florence is unusual in that it is aimed at the Carolinas from the east. Usually, storms head for the Carolinas and the center of the Atlantic coastline from the south, and these are usually bent out to sea.

But a meteorological formation known as the high pressure ridge is stationed on the east coast of the United States, preventing Florence from making the normal turn, said Brian McNoldy, hurricane expert at the University of Miami.

After Florence makes landfall, this ridge, which now crosses Washington and New York, will move east – but will be replaced by another that will spread over the Great Lakes, which will likely keep the storm said McNoldy.

The path of Florence remains uncertain. It can move a little north to Virginia or a little south to South Carolina. But the storm is such that rain will continue to fall in the area no matter where it is. And with the Appalachian mountains to the west, there could be floods and mudslides, experts fear.

Florence's great size – the storm winds of the tropical storm extend 170 miles in all directions – means that her fury will come long before the center of the storm comes ashore, Graham said.

Some of Florence's behaviors, both what has been seen until here and what experts expect, show the influence of climate change.

The expected sluggishness is becoming more prevalent, possibly due to climate change, said Jim Kossin, climate specialist and hurricane specialist at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The ocean waters on which Florence travels are about 2.7 degrees (1.5 degrees Celsius) warmer than normal, McNoldy said. Even normal water is hot enough for a storm to form at this location, but it adds fuel to the storm and its precipitation. The air retains 10% more water and can be spilled as rain.

And the storm surge, which could reach 12 feet in some areas, will add to the sea level rise due to climate change. For example, the seas off Wilmington, North Carolina, have grown 7.5 inches since 1935, according to NOAA.

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Jennifer N. Kay contributed to this report from Miami.

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