PTC8, Bebinca make landfall today (16 Sept 2024)

TL;DR: Bebinca made landfall in China overnight as a Saffir Simpson Category one storm. A non-tropical low with tropical storm force winds is making landfall in South Carolina this afternoon with impacts in northern South Carolina and southern North Carolina.

PTC8 hasn’t become any more organized over night, and is running out of time to become a tropical cyclone. It still looks more like a nor’easter than a tropical storm. Here’s the 5 am satellite image, NHC track, and warning areas:

click any image to embiggen.

Radar doesn’t look any more organized. A NOAA hurricane hunter swept through the storm and found tropical storm force winds in the cluster of thunderstorms to the northeast of the “center,” thus the warnings.

The specialized tropical cyclone models aren’t really designed to model this kind of storm, but the TAOS system can adapt and generate estimates. Here is the estimated damage swath and impacts:

Bottom line: in the northern part of the warned area (north of Charleston up to Fort Bragg (I still refuse to think of it as Liberty), expect nor’easter like conditions – gusty winds and heavy rain, maybe some scattered power outages and a tree or two down with a chance of flash flooding. Those further south in the South Carolina Lowcountry and Savannah, probably just gusty winds and maybe a passing shower (but I wouldn’t be surprised if it stays mostly dry today south of Charleston). Don’t go out to the beach and do a “Lt. Dan” reenactment and you’ll be fine.

Typhoon Bebinca made landfall on Shanghai over night US time. It’s the equivalent of a Saffir Simpson Category one storm, causing a lot of disruption (especially given the mid-Autumn holidays), but damage overall should be limited. Still, with 188 Million people in the swath of the storm, upwards of $3 Billion in economic impacts are expected.


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2 Comments

    1. Bragg was a mediocre to bad General (I don’t think he was as terrible as some say, but he sure wasn’t good). Naming a base after him was probably undeserved. The thing is, all these bases, monuments, etc. named after Confederates were vital in healing the nation after the horrors and divisions of the war, allowing Southerners some measure of dignity. Had the reconstruction era been done as many revisionists today would have had it, this nation would probably have never recovered and unified as it did. Explaining the compromises and difficulties of the era, rather than trying to undo it, would seem to make the most sense to me.

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