Flooding from Chantal in NC. Tropics Today. Some Rivers are Still Rising......
A writer and a tropical muse. A funky Lubavitcher who enjoys watching the weather, hurricanes, listening to music while enjoying life with a sense of humor and trying to make sense of it all!
Thoughts........ Pittsboro received 11 inches of rain so far out to the West of Raleigh and they have had some flooding tonight. Chapel Hill has flooding as does Mebane and lots of places where elevation and terrain ups the ante for flooding rather than places in Raleigh that are fairly flat with random hills every block or si. We are in the foothills, yet Durham where there's flooding tonight has wild dips and rises in elevation compared to most of Raleigh. There are some rescues going on and I'm sure as people drive around tonight in the darkness (this neck of the woods is dark at night unless you are on a main road) some will be surprised by either roads that are flooded or something that fell into the flooded road earlier. Not a good situation.
I'm just typing tonight but it's annoying beyond all get out that this was inevitable, and yet local news went on all day covering regular events and talking on fireworks from days ago. I knew there'd be flooding somewhere tonight and better people know it's coming than be caught off guard! Spectrum News does tend to break into their coverage faster especially if it's weather related. God Bless. When we had a bout of tornado warnings today some stations went to split screen to show the golf or tennis matches going on and seriously yay for split screens as some people are bound to get a head's up that not all is well in the Triangle. Spectrum was live for a good part of the day and many in the Triangle have Spectrum Cable.
Thankfully nothing large scale happened, but if it's your house that was flooded or your business or your car it's a big memorable event.
I had a good time today. I won't lie. I stayed home early in the day and enjoyed the windows being open a bit and listening to the gentle rain falling and following Chantal online and on satellite imagery. Later in the day I went out and got some pictures, got wet from the rain (soaked) and I think a few raindrops from Chantal landed in my mouth :) so I now have a bit of Chantal's DNA in my system. Smiling.
A tree is down around the corner or a large branch as it was almost dark and hard to say but it was blocking the road earlier and had to be moved off the road. Every tree down has it's own story. Weak or recently trimmed poorly or saturated and something hit it or it just fell over. Not a lot of wind until late in the day. There are power outages in some places. There's a dam that may or may not have a problem down near the Sandhills where they had much rain earlier today.
This is a prelude to 2025 Hurricane Season. The last two years storms made it inland to this area and that's rare and it seems that trend is ongoing this year.
Had Chantal been out over the water an hour or two longer she may have been upgraded to Hurricane. Her biggest problem was her inability to stack vertically from the start and the strong convection with the strongest storms was always to her NE moving up and out ahead of her as I've seen often the last few years.
Blows me away that the beaches that saw landfall also saw snow in January. 2025 will be memorable year weather wise down by the coast for sure. It'll me memorable in Raleigh for me too because we did get a named storm even if it was downgraded on arrival to Tropical Depression Chantal. Rarely do tropical systems get this far inland and she wasn't exactly moving fast. Secondly she's up near Yanceyville and Roxboro on her way to Virginia. Good luck Virginia!
This tidewater region of the South is really one region broken into 3 states.
Virginia
North Carolina
South Carolina
They share a history that goes back to Colonial days and their economy was and still is based on getting rain at the right time while the crops are growing, but not too much rain as to destroy the crops.They all have river basins and small towns that sprang up around the rivers and sometimes when a hurricane made landfall the river basins flood as they are actually flood plains around the rivers. And, they all have beautiful elevation in the Western part of the state and beautiful beaches on the Eastern edge of the states. Parts of Georgia is similar though parts of Eastern Georgia and North Florida are more one region, swampy vs low country and less elevation. Atlanta is part of the Piedmont Triagle that stretches up through Charlotte and on towards Raleigh.
Enough history, geography lessons.
This has been fun and hoping no one has any serious problems tonight from the flooding as it would nice to get through a tropical storm without deaths or tragedy. We have had too much in Texas this weekend and we are still shell shocked from last years flooding in Western North Carolina.
I do so love it here in ways. I especially love it when I get to see some tropical weather without having to go down to Wrightsville Beach which I do on occasion.
I'm rambling. I don't care.
I'm amused and inspired and happy.
Listening to the steady flow of rain drops pitter pattering outside as I type inside after a long, hot shower after getting soaked playing in Chantal exploring the nuances of a relatively mild storm that never wanted to give up.
Forecasts for 2025 showed this part of the Carolinas prone to having tropical problems as well as off the South Florida Coast and the Bahamas which is actually the area of wild rain that ended up spawning Chantal our homegrown Tropical Storm. The Gulf Coast is expected to be open to tropical visitors later in the season!
Again and again and again. No matter what models imply Mother Nature finds a way. Close in home grown pop up "surprise" storms are common when the rest of the basin is unfriendly. When the MDR is shut down look close in. When El Nino shuts down the Caribbean, look close in. When the NHC says "nothing for 7 days" you watch and a yellow area of interest pops up close in.
And remember again and again that Camille, one of the worst hurricanes in our recorded history, formed in the Caribbean near Cuba and the Yucatan from a Westbound tropical wave that fought it's way across the Atlantic unable to develop in a hostile atmosphere and waited until she got somewhere that the shear relaxed and the water was hot and she took off like a rocket ship into the Gulf and targeted the beautiful, peaceful cities along the Gulf just across the road from the water's edge.
Any real hurricane fanatic has made a pilgrimage to that spot along the coast, across the road from the Gulf where there's the slightest rise and a sign that marks the spot where Hurricane Camille made landfall. I've been there and walked around and I'm always in awe and surprised at how close those homes are to the water of the Gulf. And, may I say on a quiet day the waters of the Gulf that used to have shrimping boats lined up waiting to go out and get their catch and on that spot Hurricane Camille crashed into the coastline more than making landfall.
Just a random photo below of the road, not any special part of the road, to show how close people live to the Gulf and how vulnerable that area is... was and will always be.