Hurricane (Typhoon) — Craven, North Carolina

2018-09-13 to 2018-09-16 · Craven, North Carolina

Event narrative

A first ever, county wide mandatory evacuation was issued prior to Florence. Widespread heavy rain and strong winds developed over the region from the morning of September 13th through the morning of September 16th. Rainfall was generally 8' to 12' over the north part of the county north of New Bern, with 15' to 20' south of New Bern over the south part of the County. Trent Woods had a storm total of 17.35'. Extremely heavy rainfall across the county initially lead to flash flooding with numerous roads that were impassable. Extreme rainfall led to flooding along the Neuse River with many homes and roads being inundated on the north side of the river above New Bern. Gusty northeast winds developed ahead of Florence as the storm approached the coast, with a peak wind gust of 87 mph at Cherry Point at 845 LST on September 13th. The gusty winds combined with saturated ground led to many downed trees with widespread power outages. Significant storm surge flooding occurred the evening of Thursday September 13th into the early morning of Friday September 14th along the Neuse River near and in New Bern. Over 1,800 water recues were performed, many of which were directly related to the storm surge flooding. Preliminary storm surge values (above ground level) of 5 to 8 were found in River Bend, 6 to 8 feet in Trent Woods, 6 to 10 feet in New Bern, and 6 to 7 feet in Fairfield Harbor. NWS storm survey confirms a EF 1 tornado occurred near the Cherry Branch Ferry on 9/13 at 1853 EST. Maximum winds were estimated at 105 mph.

Wider weather episode

Hurricane Florence was a long-lived Cape Verde hurricane and the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the Carolinas. The sixth named storm, third hurricane, and the first major hurricane of the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season, Florence originated from a strong tropical wave that emerged off the west coast of Africa on August 30, 2018. Florence became a tropical depression near Cape Verde on August 31 and progressed west-northwest, becoming a Tropical Storm on September 1. Florence strengthened rapidly on September 4'5, becoming a Category 4 storm on the Saffir-Simpson wind scale with maximum sustained winds of 130 mph. Florence weakened to a tropical storm by September 7, but the system regained hurricane strength on September 9 and major hurricane status with winds of 140 mph on September 10. However, increasing wind shear caused the storm's winds to gradually weaken over the next few days. However, the storm's wind field continued to grow. By the evening of September 13, Florence had been downgraded to a Category 1 hurricane. Hurricane Florence made landfall near Wrightsville Beach early on Saturday September 15, and weakened further as it slowly moved inland.

Florence produced extensive wind damage along the North Carolina coast from Cape Lookout, across Carteret, Onslow, Pender and New Hanover counties. Thousands of downed trees caused widespread power outages to nearly all of eastern North Carolina. The historic legacy of Hurricane Florence will be record breaking storm surge of 9 to 13 feet and widespread devastating rainfall of 20 to 30 inches, locally up to 36 inches, which produced catastrophic and life-threatening flooding. The hardest hit areas included New Bern, Newport, Belhaven, Oriental, North Topsail Beach and Jacksonville, along with Downeast Carteret County, or basically south of a line from Kinston to Cedar Island. A storm total rainfall of 34.00 inches was reported in Swansboro, while the NWS office in Newport recorded 25.20 inches. Wind gusts of 106 mph were reported at Cape Lookout with 105 mph at Fort Macon.

Source: NOAA Storm Events Database, event_id 787008. Narrative written by the NWS forecast office that issued the report.