Thursday: by late Wednesday, the forecast area looks to be situated
on the outer fringes of broad cyclonic surface flow around Hurricane
Florence. Forecast difficulty increases greatly after this point due
to uncertainty in the location and track of Florence, which will be
governed by the location and orientation of ridging. While run-to-
run consistency and agreement between models is generally
increasing, it remains too early to determine how close Florence
will get to southeast Georgia or South Carolina. Even though the
current NHC track favors a landfall location north of the forecast
area into North Carolina, it is critical to remember two facts.
First, much of the forecast area remains within the error Cone.
Second, direct impacts from a major hurricane extend well away from
the center. Keeping these in mind, it is simply too early in the
forecast process to speculate on potential saltwater inundation,
rainfall amounts, windspeeds, and associated impacts to southern
coastal South Carolina and southeast Georgia. These are all
critically dependent on the proximity to Florence. In particular, a
tight gradient in winds and rainfall will extend southwest of the
landfall location, and small deviations in the track could spell big
changes to local impacts. Confidence is increasing that coastal
impacts including strong rip currents, rough surf conditions,
coastal flooding, and beach erosion are likely.