Hurricane Helene strengthening as it enters the Gulf of Mexico

Helene squeezed through the Yucatan Channel on Wednesday morning, meaning that the inner core remained over very warm water.  As soon as it entered the Gulf of Mexico, it was upgraded to the season's fifth hurricane and is expected to intensify through landfall.  It is forecast to reach Category 3 status by Thursday morning, and could be a Category 4 hurricane by the time the center reaches the coast on Thursday evening.

Two important things stand out in that map above: 1) the wind field is expected to become very large which is why hurricane and tropical storm warnings extend so far away from the center and 2) it will be moving quickly on Thursday as it makes landfall, allowing extremely destructive winds to punch far inland before the storm's winds decay.  This is shaping up to be a catastrophic event for Tallahassee, and even up into Georgia as far as Atlanta and then northward into the Asheville NC region.

The suite of Hurricane Threats and Impacts graphics from early Wednesday morning are shown below, and illustrate the far-reaching impacts of the storm.  The cone is overlaid only for reference, but remember the cone is never used for showing where impacts will be experienced.  You can find the latest version of this on interactive maps at https://www.weather.gov/srh/tropical#hti

As far as preparation time goes, the map below shows the approximate time that tropical storm force winds could arrive (with probabilities in the colored contours), which is when outdoor work should be completed.

As I mentioned yesterday, I have some updating radar resources available at https://bmcnoldy.earth.miami.edu/tropics/radar/ to help monitor Helene.

The easterly wave out by Cabo Verde that I mentioned previously (Invest 98L) is still organizing and could become the next named storm later this week or weekend: Isaac.  Models continue to indicate a northward turn before it reaches any land.

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