Coastal Storm Potential Increasing For Parts of North Carolina & South Carolina Early Next Week

Low Pressure System May Have Tropical Characteristics

09/13/24 2:22pm ET

Cape Hatteras Regional Radar 09/13/24 2:18pm ETPhoto byNWS

Good afternoon everyone. We continue to watch very heavy showers and thunderstorms moving into the Cape Hatteras area of North Carolina, then move inland; bringing with it copious amounts of rain and locally strong to severe thunderstorms.

We'll continue to watch this tropical moisture stream in and cause some travel headaches, as well as maritime hazards. Locally stong winds may cause boating hazards, with rough seas and isolated waterspouts. Those hazards may translate onto land, with some locally damaging winds and flooding issues due to heavy rain bands going over the same areas. South Carolina is also not out of the woods, with heavy showers & thunderstorms starting to pop up on the other side of the SC/NC state line.

The unfortunate news is that this is not the headline, only the appetizer. As discussed several days ago in reagrds to the chance of a coastal storm, those chances are starting to increase. The energy you see now in North Carolina will continue to stick around as the remnant energy of Hurricane Francine gets squeezed out of the Mississippi Valley, and off of the Southeast Coast.

Stationary energy, combined with old tropical energy, will help form a new wave of low pressure over the warm waters off of South & North Carolina. Whether we see tropical development or not, we are expecting a fairly vigorous and compact low pressure system to form, then head back inland.

At minimum, I think we are looking at the potential for gale force winds off of the Carolina coast, as well as torrential rain and a possible severe weather component to this. We could also see rough surf, coastal flooding, and widespread beach erosion.

As of now, I'd put the hazard area around the Murrell's Inlet/Myrtle Beach area, up to Sunset Beach, Cape Hatteras, and potentially at or near extreme southeast coastal areas of Virginia. The timeline on this potential remains some time between Monday and Wednesday.

National Weather Service - Hazardous Weather Outlook - Morehead City, NC