Brad Panovich explains why Helene damaged the North Carolina mountains so much

WCNC Weather Impact Chief Meteorologist Brad Panovich broke down the destruction North Carolina has seen since Helene hit late Thursday and early Friday morning and explained why it was such a significant weather event for the mountains.

While Charlotte experienced power outages, downed trees and some fatalities, western North Carolina got hit the hardest. Panovich called the situation there "dire."

"That's where things are much more dire," Panovich said. "And the scary part is there're some communities that are really remote that we haven't heard anything about yet. And that's not a good thing because we just don't know."

Communication has been really poor in that area, and getting supplies in and out of there has been difficult too.

"The only way I can describe what's happening in the North Carolina mountains is they basically have become like islands," Panovich explained. "They are isolated communities on ridgetops and valleys that are just cut off from the rest of the world right now."

Panovich said it became evident to him on Tuesday, Sept. 24, that Hurricane Helene was going to significantly impact to western North Carolina because of the predecessor rain event the area had.

"For folks that don't know what that is, it's a rain event that happens 36 hours, 24 hours ahead of a tropical storm," Panovich explained. "And when that started occurring Tuesday, we knew we were gonna have problems because we had anywhere from 6 to 12 inches of rain in the mountains even before Helene got here."

Panovich shared that predecessor rain event is what laid the groundwork for Helene to push all the floodwaters over the top.

"There was no room for this water in the mountains, so we really started ramping up that this was gonna be an extreme or catastrophic event," Panovich shared. "And even though we were ramping it up like that, it was still hard to visualize or for people to imagine that it could be that bad."

The small shift Helene did to the east also increased the wind risk, Panovich said.

"We knew the flood risk was gonna be a problem the entire time, but when the wind risk started ramping up, that meant we were gonna get a lot more trees down, a lot more power outages, and that made the flood risk even more dire because it was hard to get the message out once the power started going out.

Western North Carolina was on the bad, or "dirty" side of Helene, which means people in that area are most likely to see storm surge, extreme wind and heavier rain bands that can cause flooding — and even tornadoes.

"And then, you throw in just the topography of western North Carolina [where] pretty much all of the ridgetops on the Blue Ridge basically are perpendicular to that southeast wind, which created orographic lift and squeezed out every ounce of moisture out of the system," Panovich outlined. "So the amount of rain in some of these locations, we had some isolated reports of 30 to 35 inches of rain and some of the ridge tops had wind gusts to 100 mph."

Panovich also believes embedded tornadoes happened when Helene was at its strongest in the region.

"We got a lot of reports of enhanced wind damage in parts of the mountains and foothills that there likely will be tornado damage at some point, if we ever get there to do damage surveys," Panovich said. "It really was, unfortunately, the perfect storm of destruction here in the Carolinas, and everything just came together at once and, it is devastating."

Panovich compared the destruction to the great flood in 1916, calling Helene "a generational defining moment" for many residents of North Carolina.

[BrettBumeter]

It felt like a marathon spread over 4 days. One of the related challenges related to all the leaves and small branches that fell during the 3 inches of rain we got in boone everyday before the bigger storm. They clogged up drains and run off ditches creating water backups that then soaked in even more. Super saturated ground then got hit with 12-20 inches after.

I was out every day and night trying to clear gutters, trenches, drain pipes and French drains that were clogging repeatedly, which then drove water into my house. All that while dodging falling branches.

It was nuts.

[richh]

Thank you Brad for being a beacon for assistance in Western NC.

[kennethfuller]

I've been a weather watcher/enthusiast since my early teens. Brad is one of the best meteorologists in the business, and has a passion for his profession. Any talking head can stand in front of a camera and recite the forecast, but Brad will explain the why and how of such weather events such as Helene without all the hype .. plus he'll tell us about celestial events and such. I have a lot of respect for him.

[markberryhill]

He's exactly right. Where i live in Pickens County, SC it had rained 15" before Hurricane Helene had hit daylight Friday morning 🌄

[waynewells]

Just visited Boone last month, loved my visits to lovely Asheville, born in nearby Greenville SC. My heart goes out to all the victims. Please donate, folks!,

[robbcoolmeadowbrookinnmain]

I stumbled across your video last tuesday just to see what the extended forcast was and I was stunned at what could happen. Thanks to you I was able to prepare ahead of time hoping it would fizzle out. BTW I am in the Caldwell county, we had half a dozen trees come down around our house but feel very fortunate thats most of our damage. Thanks for keeping us

[stringlarson]

Listening to Brad reminds me of listening to Tom Skilling (WGN Chicago) for many decades. You folks in Charlotte are fortunate.

[ceciljones]

How many perfect storms are happening these days is astonishing

[rhondagentry]

I recommend Ryan Hall Y'all YouTube channel for any donations. He is a meteorologist with a nonprofit that is very efficient, effective, and quick to be boots on the ground in these natural disasters. He is based in Kentucky. I appreciate local coverage; however, Ryan covers nonstop for 12 hour plus stints with storm trackers who even stop to help with rescues when necessary. His nonprofit has already delivered much including Starlinks for communication. Thanks to Brad whom I also followed very closely during Helene.

[wandasanders]

Thanks So very much for this explanation, Brad. When I first heard of the floods in the mts, I couldn't figure out how the hurricane was still in the gulf. It was confusing. Thanks again.

[BloomByCC]

Crushing convergence of catastrophic weather events😢

[scottprather]

Very professional weatherman 👍
This truly was an unprecedented weather event

[BobQuigley]

Thanks for very good and useful information.

[Toaster-vz]

When you live in the mountains you need to be prepared to survive on your own for several weeks with no outside help.

[HearturMind]

If you experienced Irene in Vermont 15 years ago you saw this coming, but people just couldn’t fathom it when we tried to warn them.

[scottfranson]

This area is Considered a RainForest . Weatherman can explain . Very Beautiful Place .

[VirginiaPendleton-yw]

A life time of building the beauty. And just a moment of destruction. 😢😢😢🙏🙏🙏

[Musicman-yv]

Its pretty simple.... Lots of rain falls in a mountain area .... Rain rushes down the mountains into the low lying areas where it creates deep, fast running water.

[myradioon]

There was a forward reaching "tendril" arm of the storm that reached north and arrived in Asheville BEFORE the real storm even hit. Torrential Rain started Wed at 5pm and it rained for two days before the storm even hit. The wind was very bad and I think the mountain elevation took the winds directly. It snapped huge pines on every ridge in half.

[wtk]

It seems like the flood control dams did get caught unprepared, whether that was their own inattention or bad weather forecasting. But with all the rain lately and then a hurricane in the region, it was time to lower water levels in anticipation. The entire purpose of the dams is to prevent flooding like this. This kind of destruction used to happen about once a generation in Appalachian communities, but the modern system of dams has largely stopped it, until this.