Will Helene's rain ruin your weekend plans?

Helene rolled into Northeast Ohio on Friday afternoon, bringing rain to the area, potentially impacting Friday night football.

The storm up to now
Shortly after 11:00 Thursday night, The National Hurricane Center confirmed Hurricane Helene made landfall at 11:10 PM east of the mouth of the Aucilla River with wind speeds of 140 mph and a minimum pressure of 938 MB.

Thursday afternoon, the National Hurricane Center reported that Air Force hurricane hunters found that Hurricane Helene had strengthened to become a dangerous and major category 3 hurricane with maximum sustained winds of 120 mph. The storm continued to strengthen to a category 4 storm by Thursday evening before landfall, bringing a dangerous and life-threatening storm surge, hurricane-force winds, and flooding.

Following landfall, Hurricane Helene continued to move north over Georgia and weakened considerably before sunrise on Friday. It was downgraded to a tropical storm around 5 AM on Friday. As of 7 AM, the storm is still packing a punch as it moves over Atlanta with maximum wind speeds of 70 mph, with heavy rain leading to flash flooding across Georgia, South Carolina, and North Carolina. By 11 AM, the winds decreased to 45 mph. While winds are decreasing, widespread and heavy rain is likely for a huge portion of the United States. Flood watches extend as far north as southern Ohio and Southern Indiana.

Helene will continue to weaken as it moves farther into the United States - eventually becoming a tropical depression and remnant low pressure that will merge with a separate system. While it will be much weaker, we will see some notable impacts from this system, including more rain and wind throughout the day on Friday, which lingers into the weekend.

Impact on Northeast Ohio
By Friday evening, much of the area will be wet for a few hours. Keep this in mind for any plans you have on Friday evening. At the same time, winds will also increase during Friday afternoon and into the evening. Gusts of 30-40+ mph will be possible for a brief period Friday night and early Saturday. Winds will back off through the day on Saturday.

The increase of winds will increase wave action on Lake Erie. The National Weather Service has issued some alerts. A small craft advisory is in effect until Saturday morning for ENE winds of 20-30 knots and gusts to 35 knots. This will result in waves of 4-7 feet. There is also a beach hazard statement in effect until tomorrow morning due to the high risk of rip currents.

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Hurricanes are strong low-pressure systems that turn counterclockwise in the northern hemisphere. As the remnant low-pressure churns to our SW this weekend, it will keep on-and-off showers in the forecast for a few days. Rainfall amounts do not look overly high for Northeast Ohio — plan for 0.25 - 1.00 inches of rain from Friday into Sunday. The highest totals will be in our southern and western communities. So, while we will certainly receive some impacts from this system —it will be nothing compared to the Gulf of Mexico/southeastern US.

Below are a few images of Futurecast to give you an idea about the timing and coverage of the rain over the next two days. Note the most widespread rain is expected Friday evening, which slowly fades, and only isolated showers are expected overnight and into the first half of the day on Saturday. Rain chances will once again ramp Saturday afternoon and evening.

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