Extreme rainfall and flooding from Hurricane Florence

Abstract

Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach, North Carolina, around 1115 UTC 14 September as a weakening Category 1 hurricane (on the Saffir-Simpson Hurricane Wind Scale). Its slow movement through North and South Carolina resulted in extreme rainfall totals and major flooding making it the ninth-most-destructive hurricane to affect the United States. The structure of Florence is examined using microwave data, radiosonde observations and rainfall registrations to identify the processes along with its slow movement which caused the extreme rainfall. Two major processes were identified with initially, intense thunderstorms driven by strong buoyancy with some dynamic uplift, generated such rainfall while following landfall larger scale ascent with winds turned in an anticyclonic direction with height, appeared to be the principal cause of the heavy rainfall.

Keywords

• Rainfall
• Slow movement
• Buoyancy
• Ascent