Tropical Storm Ophelia makes landfall in North Carolina, moves north along east coast
Satellite image of tropical storm Ophelia.
Tropical Storm Ophelia made landfall on North Carolina's coast near Emerald Isle early on Saturday (September 23) as it moved north along the east coast of the United States.
Before the storm made landfall, the governors of North Carolina, Maryland and Virginia declared a state of emergency. It was predicted that Storm Ophelia would bring heavy rainfall as well as tropical-storm-force winds and could lead to minor flooding along the coasts of the states throughout the weekend.
The forecasters had stated that North Carolina and Virginia are likely to receive heavy rainfall of up to 7 inches and the mid-Atlantic region will be getting 2-4 inches of rainfall in the weekend because of the storm.
The officials also placed a warning of tropical storm in places from Cape Fear, North Carolina, to Fenwick Island, Delaware. Around 70,000 homes and businesses faced power outages in Virginia and North Carolina as the storm made landfall.
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“When you have that slow-moving storm with several inches of rain, coupled with a gust that gets to 30, 40 miles per hour, that’s enough to bring down a tree or to bring down limbs,” said Duke Energy spokesperson Jeff Brooks, while speaking to WTVD-TV on Saturday. “And that’s what we’ve seen in most of the areas where we’ve experienced outages,” he added.
The Major League Baseball match between the host Washington Nationals and the visiting Atlanta Braves which was scheduled on Saturday (September 23) was postponed to Sunday due to the storm.
Storm likely to weaken towards east coast of US
As per the National Hurricane Center (NHC), the storm carried maximum sustained winds of 65mph as of 8 am Saturday. Gradually, the storm is likely to weaken as it travels north along the east coast of the United States, reaching Maryland by Sunday.
Hurricane specialist with the National Hurricane Centre Philippe Papin said that in the next couple of days, the primary risk carried by the storm system will be the threat of floods due to the rain.
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“There have been tropical storm-force winds observed, but those are starting to gradually subside as the system moves further inland,” said Papin, in an interview on Saturday. “However, there is a significant flooding rainfall threat for a large portion of eastern North Carolina into southern Virginia over the next 12 to 24 hours,” he added.
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