A few miles made the difference between a storm that could have been so much worse and one that was already bad enough. With at least 30 people killed in the U.S., and more than 1,000 killed in Haiti, Hurricane Matthew was one of the worst Atlantic hurricanes since Sandy. It tied as the fifth longest-lived major hurricane in the Atlantic since
MoreAs the cleanup from Hurricane Matthew progresses elsewhere, the rivers of eastern North Carolina continue to go through a historic flood brought on by the hurricane’s torrential rains. In many locations, the water is higher than in the aftermath of Hurricane Floyd in 1999, the previous high water mark on record for many locations.
After Matthew raked the Caribbean and Florida coast, it brought a deluge to North Carolina. Though the storm moved out to sea earlier this week, it left behind a soggy legacy in North Carolina as rain water slowly works its way through the state’s river system.
Rainfall totals with Hurricane Matthew.
A massive area was deluged with more than 10 inches of rain as Matthew went by. According to WeatherBell’s Ryan Maue, 13.6 trillion gallons of water fell across the region, an amount the Washington Post equates to 75 percent of the Chesapeake Bay.
The highest rainfall total verified by the National Weather Service came at Elizabethtown, about 50 miles northwest of Wilmington, where 18.38 inches fell.
The Neuse River in Smithfield crested at 14 feet above flood stage on Monday, setting a new record. The river level downstream at Goldboro also set a new record, cresting at just over 11 feet above flood stage and nearly a foot above the previous record in 1999.
Farther downstream in Kinston, the Neuse is also expected to reach a record crest on Friday, 14 feet above flood stage. Floodwaters are expected to persist into next week.
The Tar River in the city of Tarboro crested Wednesday at 17 feet above flood stage, a few feet shy of the crest from Floyd in 1999. The river is projected to crest in Greenville at 12 feet above flood stage late Thursday night.
Rainfall totals with Hurricane Floyd (1999)
According to the North Carolina Department of Emergency Management, 80 air rescues had been made by Wednesday and 20 are dead. Floodwaters are receding in upstream areas, and the full extent of the damage there is becoming apparent.
Through late Wednesday, parts of Interstates 40 and 95 were closed due to flooding, and receding waters have revealed roadway damage. The southbound lanes of I-95 were washed out near the town of Benson, and traffic will be shifted away for at least three weeks while repairs are made. As of Thursday morning, there were still more than 90,000 power outages.
Tropical systems generally bring a lot of rain. The most staggering amounts normally occur when the systems are slowing down because a slower moving storm has more time to dump rain. Matthew — and Floyd for that matter — were slightly different, though, as both maintained their forward speed and still managed to drop phenomenal amounts of rain.
In addition to the numerous rainfall records with Matthew, precipitable water is another striking measure of the storm’s soggy nature.
Precipitable water is a measure of the total water content of the atmosphere over a given point. Record high values for precipitable water were set in Jacksonville and Charleston.
Charleston set its record on Saturday at 2 a.m., when the National Weather Service measured 2.93 inches of precipitable water. In other words, if you instantly took all of the water vapor in the atmosphere directly over Charleston and turned it into rain, it would pile up to 2.93 inches of water on the ground. That’s more than double the average of 1.25 inches for this time of year and shattered the previous record of 2.7 inches set in in 2010.
Increasing atmospheric humidity is an indicator of climate change. As the atmosphere warms, the amount of evaporation increases. In turn, this means there is more water in the atmosphere available in a storm to fall as rain (or snow in the winter). While it is too soon to directly attribute this particular aspect of Matthew to climate change, it is in line with the larger trend of more extreme rainfall events.
Warm ocean water is the primary fuel for hurricanes. There are other atmospheric players, such as the upper atmospheric wind speed, that also govern how strong a hurricane can get, but the energy comes from the water below. And water in the tropical Atlantic has been getting warmer in large part due to climate change.
With that in mind, Phil Klotzbach, a hurricane researcher at Colorado State University, made several points about Matthew. Two were telling:
Matthew went from a Category 1 to Category 5 hurricane in 24 hours. That was the third fastest rapid intensification in the Atlantic on record. The other two also happened since 2000 (Wilma 2005, Felix 2007)
Matthew remained a Category 4-5 hurricane for 102 consecutive hours. That was the longest any Atlantic hurricane has maintained that intensity during the month of October.
Unraveling the ways that climate change might impact future hurricane activity is still an active area of research, but current projections suggest that stronger hurricanes will become more common in the decades to come, even if the total number of hurricanes does not change that much.
