Home » Travel » North & South Carolina » On the Remnants of Hurricanes

On the Remnants of Hurricanes

© Stephen Strother

As I write this article, the remnants of Hurricane Frances patter against the windows and walls of our house. It is almost 1:00 A.M. on Wednesday, September 8 and it has been raining here for almost 24 hours. So far we have received about three inches of rain from this storm which luckily was downgraded to a tropical depression long before it made its way this far up the east coast. The weather forecasters tell us that we can expect at least another inch of rain over the next twelve to fourteen hours.

We live in the South Central Piedmont section of North Carolina (near Charlotte). An area of the Carolinas that is far enough inland that most hurricanes have blown the worst of their ferocity out before they reach us here. There are exceptions of course (Hurricane Hugo for example still packed a formidable punch when it hit Charlotte in 1989 after first devastating Charleston, SC), however the heavy rain with light to moderate wind gusts of today's Frances are more typical of what we see in this part of the Carolinas whenever a hurricane (or what remains of it) finds its way this far north (if coming in from the Gulf of Mexico) or west (if approaching from the Atlantic). By the time a tropical system makes it here the real dangers are flooding and tornados. The possibility of flooding is caused by the large amounts of rain that can be dumped by a tropical system (especially when it follows in close proximity to other tropical systems that also drenched the area in rain and therefore also already saturated the ground). The tornados are a product of the still volatile atmospheric conditions that exist due to the presence of the weakening tropical system.

For the most part, Frances has been somewhat typical of the tropical systems we usually see in this part of the Carolinas with the main exception being that she is moving slowly and therefore she is pouring more rain on us than most systems do.

I have actually felt the urge to write an article such as this on several occasions over the past year whenever a tropical system effected the weather here. I realize that I have been fortunate not to have ever witnessed the true fury of a hurricane (I did not live in the Charlotte area when Hugo blew through) and I hope that I never do. Hurricane Frances caused much more severe damage and even devastation in parts of Florida and I respect the power and life threatening destructive force of a hurricane at full strength. Also let me be clear that I understand the hardship and sorrow that hurricanes have caused for many over the years. Hurricanes are absolutely not a natural phenomena to be taken lightly and the loss of life and property that they can cause are a huge concern. I personally have seen the devastation caused by flooding from a hurricane when I drove through parts of eastern North Carolina in 1999 about two weeks after Hurricane Floyd hit the area hard. Yet the more subdued remnants of a hurricane that usually persist this far inland are less menacing and more manageable.

The copyright of the article On the Remnants of Hurricanes in North & South Carolina is owned by . Permission to republish On the Remnants of Hurricanes in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.