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Hanna projected to bring 2-4 inches of rain to Triad
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Published: September 3, 2008
Hurricane Hanna has been downgraded to a tropical storm, but that doesn't mean that Triad residents should put away their umbrellas for the weekend.
The storm is likely to strengthen as it makes its way from the Bahamas to the Atlantic coastline, and how the storm progresses today could determine how much rain it will dump on the Triad, said Phil Manuel, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service office in Blacksburg, Va.
Forecasts last night called for the storm's remnants to pass through the Winston-Salem area sometime Friday night, bringing 2 to 4 inches of rain between Friday and Saturday, with most of the rain stopping by Saturday night, Manuel said.
But that forecast could change depending upon the power that the storm develops and what track it ends up taking, Manuel said.
"It acts like a spinning top," he said. "Anything that disrupts the spin could cause it to wobble and change direction," he said.
If the storm continues on its current path, it will make landfall on the South Carolina coast, south of Charleston, Manuel said.
Hanna was churning slowly through the western Bahamas yesterday. The storm killed 13 people in northern Haiti and one in Puerto Rico earlier this week.
Although Hanna's maximum sustained winds had slipped to 70 mph, it could regain hurricane strength, officials at the National Hurricane Center in Miami said.
In Florida, Gov. Charlie Crist issued a state of emergency yesterday to more easily mobilize emergency responders if Hanna hits the state. But forecasters warned that the entire East Coast should keep close watch.
In North Carolina, Gov. Mike Easley ordered the State Emergency Response Team to start working to deal with the threats caused by Hanna and two other tropical storms -- Ike and Josephine -- out in the Atlantic.
"Basically we all have 36 to 48 hours to get prepared for this storm, and then there could be another one right behind it," Easley said.
Officials with the N.C. Division of Emergency Management said that the entire state is expected to get heavy rainfall if Hanna stays on its current track. Officials said that areas of great concern are those already flooded last week by the remnants of Tropical Storm Fay.
There is also the chance that the storm could fizzle, bringing little or no rain to the Triad, said Brian Locklear, a weather-service meteorologist in the Raleigh office.
"It's possible that the system could completely fall apart," Locklear said.
As of yesterday, 26.48 inches of rain had fallen at Piedmont Triad International Airport since Jan. 1. That's more than 3 inches below normal, Locklear said.
Although the remnants of Fay brought needed relief from the drought -- including more than 6 inches at PTI -- more rain is needed, said Curtis Weaver, a hydrologist with the U.S. Geological Service in Raleigh.
"One rainstorm is certainly not going to be able to cure a drought," Weaver said.
Last week's rains from Fay helped matters but came so quickly that much of the water ended up as storm runoff before it could be absorbed into the ground, he said.
Fay's rains caused the Yadkin River to rise almost 10 feet, according to water levels recorded on the river at Enon, in Yadkin County. As of yesterday, it was still running about two feet higher than before the arrival of heavy rains associated with Fay.
The flow of the river surged from about 200 cubic feet a second to a peak of 10,800 feet a second during the storm, Weaver said. Yesterday, the river was flowing at 2,100 cubic feet a second, compared with the average of about 1,500.
But those gains could be lost depending upon how much rain we get for the rest of the year, Weaver said.
When the summer storm season is winding down -- as it is now -- the state relies on rains that move in from the tropics, such as those that came with Fay and could come with Hanna, Manuel said.
The rain the area has received recently could help alleviate some problems and make yards look nice, but it could be too late to benefit agriculture, he said.
"For farmers, it's a day late and a dollar short," Manuel said.
Paul Garber can be reached at 727-7327 or at pgarber@wsjournal.com
Material from The Associated Press was used in this report.
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